


I Think The Rest of Campus Melted Away

by platonicbullshit



Series: I Did it Again and Again (I Think I've Learned Something) [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/M, my self indulgent university au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-12 17:08:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18014933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicbullshit/pseuds/platonicbullshit
Summary: All in all, Tessa finds that co-ed living isn’t quite as awful as she had first predicted. Yes, the bathrooms stink; yes, there’s always at least one pair of men’s underwear in every washing machine; yes, boys are generally slobs. But she discovers that many of them are apologetic about the smell, and they help her reach her detergent on the top shelf in the laundry room that’s just out of her reach, and they clean up if you ask them to.And maybe Kaitlyn had a point about proximity. Tessa doesn’t particularly mind it when she’s walking down the hall and the door to the boy’s bathroom opens and a boy steps out of the room amidst a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped low around his waist, water droplets dripping from his hair down his exposed chest.Even if that boy is Scott.[Or: Tessa and Scott meet in college]





	1. freshman

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my very self-indulgent college AU!
> 
> I'd like to start by apologizing for my lack of knowledge of the Canadian school system, I tried to leave this as vague as possible because I'm pretty sure it's relatively different from my experience at a tiny American liberal arts college. Sorry for my typical American ignorance.
> 
> I don't own Tessa, Scott, Toronto, Cards Against Humanity, or any of the other people, places, or things mentioned from this point on.
> 
> Title is from "Girl from the Sidewalk" by Noah Floersch.
> 
> Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

At seventeen years old, Tessa Virtue is fairly certain she knows exactly what her college life will look like. She has imagined the classes she’ll take, the friends she’ll make, the party invitations she will politely decline. Above all, however, she has dreamt of the life she’ll have living in the dorms. After sharing a room with her older sister nearly her entire life, Tessa isn’t concerned about the roommate situation. Rather, she’s been thinking about the constant flow of friends coming through her open door, the late-night gossip sessions with the girls in her hall, the Bachelor viewing parties hosted in the dorm TV lounge.

Opening her housing assignment and finding she’ll be living in the co-ed residence hall for the next nine months was pointedly _not_ a part of her dream.

In the three weeks between when the assignments go out and when she moves in, Tessa’s mother and her new roommate, Kaitlyn, take turns assuring Tessa that this will not be a hindrance to the perfect college experience Tessa’s been counting on.

“You know, it’ll probably be better this way!” Kaitlyn tells her over the phone one hot, August day. “Think of all the boys. Who knows, your future husband could be our next door neighbor!”

Tessa just groans.

Despite her lack of enthusiasm toward her living arrangements, Tessa finds herself full of excited energy on move-in day. The two-hour drive to Toronto feels never ending, and she practically leaps out of the car when her dad pulls up outside her new residence hall.

She quickly sets about getting checked in, receiving her keys and leaving her parents to unpack her stuff from the car. She smiles gratefully, and attempts at apologetically, toward them when they finally catch up to her, both carrying boxes and her dad pulling a large suitcase behind him. She takes a box from his arms before leading them to the elevators.

Tessa establishes an efficient system of unpacking when they find her room. Kaitlyn hasn’t arrived yet, so Tessa claims a bed and has her dad start making it up while she and her mom get to work putting her clothes away in her wardrobe.

Kaitlyn arrives around lunchtime, and Tessa shuffles her parents out of the room to grab lunch after quick introductions, leaving Kaitlyn to set up her side of the room without so many people in the limited space.

Over lunch Tessa concedes to her parents that perhaps this won’t be as disastrous a situation as she had initially believed. 

Upon their arrival back to the room, however, Tessa immediately eats her words.

While Kaitlyn is still at work on her side of the room, now hanging a large tapestry on the wall over her bed, and none of Tessa’s things appear to have been touched, something seems distinctly wrong.

There’s shouting coming from the room next to theirs, and the distinct smell of _boy_ is wafting in from the hallway through Kaitlyn and Tessa’s open door. 

Tessa shoots Kaitlyn a panicked look, but the other girl just shrugged. 

“That’s been going on since about fifteen minutes after you left.” She explains. “Seems like our neighbors are… rowdy.”

“You could say that.” Tessa groans. This is exactly what she was afraid of.

She tries to shrug it off, connecting her phone to her Bluetooth speaker with the intention of drowning out the racket coming through the wall.

“Do you mind if…?” She asks, trailing off and nodding toward the speaker.  
  
“God, please.” Kaitlyn responds immediately. “I would love to hear anything other than boys yelling nonsense.”

Tessa laughs and turns up her music.

 ++

It’s not long before Tessa and Kaitlyn meet their new neighbors. That night, everyone living on their floor gathers for a section meeting, led by their RA. Tessa follows Kaitlyn to a squishy looking couch in the corner, and seconds after they sit two boys fall onto the cushions beside them.

“Mind if we sit?” The first one says, floppy hair falling in his eyes and smile so wide Tessa’s cheeks hurt just looking at him.

“I believe you’re supposed to ask that before you actually sit down,” Tessa retorts, shifting closer to Kaitlyn to make room for the boys who appear to have little regard for personal space. Or, at least, the one who’d spoken has little regard for personal space. The other sits at the very edge of the corner of the cushion, looking like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible, and having the sensibility to blush slightly at Tessa’s words.

“Right, sorry.” The first boy responds, taking advantage of Tessa’s movement and shifting more toward the center of the couch and getting right back into Tessa’s space. Tessa doesn’t think he’s actually all that sorry. “C’mon Chiddy, make yourself at home.”

The other boy shoots Tessa a genuine and much appreciated apologetic look before shuffling into the newly available space.

“I’m Scott Moir, by the way.” Mr. floppy-hair, no-personal-space says, sticking a hand out toward Tessa and Kaitlyn.

“Tessa.” She shakes his hand. So now he has manners.

“I’m Kaitlyn.” Despite knowing her for mere hours, Tessa can tell from the winning smile on Kaitlyn’s face and the lilt in her voice that she’s flirting. Tessa rolls her eyes.

It seems to work, however, as Scott’s eyes drop down towards Kaitlyn’s legs before he slowly drags them upwards again. Tessa fights the urge to roll her eyes again, or clear her throat, or shove the two to opposite ends from her position between them.

“Nice to meet you, ladies.” Scott says when he finishes checking Tessa’s roommate out under the guise of shaking her hand across Tessa’s lap. “This is Chiddy.”

He jerks a thumb unceremoniously over his shoulder at the other boy on the couch. 

“Chiddy?” Kaitlyn says, voicing the question that had been playing in Tessa’s mind since Scott first said the name.

“It’s Patrick, actually,” The boy finally speaks, sitting forward to greet Tessa and Kaitlyn finally. “Don’t ask.”

He shakes both Kaitlyn and Tessa’s hands before shrinking back into the couch.

“Hey, you two are in 315, right?” Scott’s question has Tessa raising an eyebrow, silently questioning how he has this information. “We’re in 317. Next door neighbors!” He explains in response. “I noticed you’re from London.”

Tessa resists the urge to groan at the continuation of this conversation.

“I am, in fact, from London.” She replies with what she hopes is a tone of finality.

“I’m from Ilderton!” He offers up with what Tessa deems far too much excitement about a tiny suburb of her hometown. “Small world, huh?”

“Miniscule.”

To Tessa’s relief, the meeting finally begins, and Scott shocks her by paying attention and not pestering her with more questions.

It’s not until the meeting ends and she flees as quickly as possible, flying down the hall to her room that she makes the connection. She lives in 315. He’s in 317. He’s her noisy neighbor.

++

The semester begins and Tessa throws herself into her new role of college student headfirst. She spends hours in the library, bent over textbooks, doing homework, and meeting with study groups. She discovers a few familiar faces in her classes, and is pleasantly surprised to find herself becoming friends with Patrick.

“I don’t know how you put up with him.”

It’s a crisp autumn day and she and Patrick are sitting at their usual table on the top floor of the library, trying to pretend the beautiful day outside the window doesn’t exist.

“Who?” Patrick asks, not looking up from the chemistry question he’s been struggling with for the past fifteen minutes. Tessa knows he’s playing dumb; they’ve had this discussion multiple times before.

“Scott.” She groans.

“What did he do this time?” Patrick still hasn’t looked up from his calculations, and it only serves to frustrate Tessa more.

“Nothing in particular. He just… exists,” she complains. “Loudly.”

“Mhmm.” Patrick nods, finally acquiescing and engaging in the conversation. “I am aware of his broken volume dial.”

Tessa barks out a deep belly laugh before remembering where she is and glancing around in embarrassment.

“Only works from 90 to 100.” Patrick is smiling now, clearly finding his own jokes amusing.

“Exactly. And I have a wall as a barrier. I don’t know how you deal with it, completely unfiltered.”

“Earplugs.” He looks at her seriously. “If you stop by my room tonight I can give you a pair.”

She lets out another laugh. His face never falters.

++

All in all, Tessa finds that co-ed living isn’t quite as awful as she had first predicted. Yes, the bathrooms stink; yes, there’s always at least one pair of men’s underwear in every washing machine; yes, boys are generally slobs. But she discovers that many of them are apologetic about the smell, and they help her reach her detergent on the top shelf in the laundry room that’s _just_ out of her reach, and they clean up if you ask them to.

And maybe Kaitlyn had a point about proximity. Tessa doesn’t particularly mind it when she’s walking down the hall and the door to the boy’s bathroom opens and a boy steps out of the room amidst a cloud of steam, a towel wrapped low around his waist, water droplets dripping from his hair down his exposed chest.

Even if that boy is Scott.

Maybe especially if that boy is Scott.

As much as her distaste for the boy sits in a knot at the pit of her stomach, when he walks down the hall with far too little fabric adorning his body, hair wet and curling, abs on display, the knot in her stomach becomes something that feels less like dislike and a lot more like want.

And if she leaves for class ten minutes earlier than she needs to in order to insure they’ll cross paths as he makes his way back to his room after his shower, she’ll never admit it.

She finds herself spending time in the little lounge on her floor, mostly scrolling through her phone while she waits for a friend, sometimes reading, on a rare occasion doing some homework. She’s discovered that this opens her up for even more interactions with Scott, which had originally turned her off to it, but she eventually gives in, unwilling to avoid a common space of her residence hall in order to not see her obnoxious neighbor.

She’ll be curled up on a couch in sweats and her glasses, novel open in her lap. He’ll come barreling into the room, calling out “Virtue!”

She’ll glance up with a patient smile, greeting him as one might an over-zealous kindergartener. “Hi, Scott.”

“Are you coming to the game tonight?” He’s been asking her since hockey season started, seemingly desperate to get her to come. She hadn’t known he was on the team the first few times he’d asked, had found out when Kaitlyn, who had been to every home game that season, had mentioned it in passing.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she’ll reply, gesturing down at the book in her lap. He’ll pout, she’ll roll her eyes, and before she knows what’s happened a switch will flip and he’ll be laughing, racing down the hallway once more.

Despite turning down his invitations every other weekend, at some point in mid-January Tessa finds herself trailing behind Kaitlyn into the arena for a home game. She’s not entirely sure how her friend roped her into coming, as far as she knows neither of them particularly cares about hockey, but she follows the other girl down the stairs and takes a seat in an uncomfortable plastic folding chair. She knows she’s in for a long, alarming, confusing night.

Although she’d been dragged to her brother’s hockey games as a kid and had put up with the occasional game on TV at family events, Tessa’s fairly uneducated when it comes to hockey. She couldn’t tell you the rules, positions, or plays. She had never felt the need to learn, floating through life in an ignorant bliss.

It had served her just fine throughout the first seventeen years of her life. But it makes for an awkward evening when she finds herself smack dab in the middle of it.

The hours pass in a blur of deafening cheers, tangible excitement, and bodies thrown against the boards that separate the crowd from the ice. Tessa finds herself swept up in it, unsure why she’s standing and cheering but standing and cheering nonetheless. Kaitlyn seems to be having a good time as well, though Tessa thinks the other girl is more focused on one player in particular than the game as a whole.

By the end of the game, both girls are red-cheeked and rosy-nosed, and Tessa feels exhilarated. She has little idea what actually happened during the game, but she’s established that they won, so she lets herself feel giddy and soak in the energy of the arena. As she makes to leave the way they came in, Kaitlyn grabs her arm and jerks her downward, toward the ice.

“Wait! Don’t leave yet,” Kaitlyn’s voice is pleading, and Tessa thinks she couldn’t escape the grip the other girl has on her arm if she tried. “Let’s go see the boys.”

Tessa’s not entirely sure which boys Kaitlyn is referring to, but she assumes it has something to do with the player Kaitlyn had been ogling the entire game. Tessa also has a sinking suspicion that Scott will be involved.

Sure enough, Kaitlyn guides Tessa towards the locker rooms beneath the stands. They pause outside the men’s home locker room, and Tessa notices the way Kaitlyn tucks her hair behind her ear and picks at her fingernails. She looks nervous.

They aren’t waiting long before boisterous boys begin bursting out of the locker room in twos and threes, and Tessa watches as Kaitlyn strains her neck with each exit.

After a few groups have gone, Tessa would guess half the team has left, a familiar face emerges, deep in conversation with a teammate. The boy accompanying Scott is tall, dark, and handsome, and Kaitlyn’s face immediately lights up.

“Andrew! Hi!” She calls out, seemingly unaware she’s just cut Scott off mid-sentence. 

Scott scowls but the other boy, Andrew, Tessa assumes, doesn’t seem to mind. His face lights up in an expression to mirror Kaitlyn, and Tessa thinks they’re both lost to the world. He wraps the blonde girl up in his arms, and Tessa thinks she hears Kaitlyn say something along the lines of “you were amazing today,” but she can’t be sure due to the way it’s muffled in Andrew’s shoulder.

Realizing she may never get her friend back from that embrace, Tessa turns to Scott. She finds him beaming at her.

“I didn’t think you’d come.” His voice is soft and his eyes are shiny. It’s the most genuine Tessa thinks she’s ever seen him.

“Somebody needed a chaperone.” She jerks her head in Kaitlyn’s direction, where she’s still entwined with Andrew. Scott chuckles.

“Still appreciate it,” he mumbles, kicking at the ground. She’s not sure she’s heard him right. She lets it slide.

“You were good tonight,” she tells him earnestly. If they’re going to have to wait for Kaitlyn and Andrew to finish up their little rendezvous, they might as well talk. “At least, I think you were." 

He chuckles at that, and she feels her cheeks heat up.

“Honestly, I don’t know much about hockey. And I couldn’t really tell which one you were.”

At her admission, he lets out a full belly laugh, surprising her and almost startling Kaitlyn and Andrew out of their bubble. “Thank you for the honesty.” He tells her. “But I’ll tell you a secret to help you keep track of me. My name’s on the back of my jersey.”

She rolls her eyes at his mocking, landing a light punch to his bicep. “Screw you, Moir.”

“Hmm, maybe.” He gives her a dramatic wink and oh, the heat in her cheeks is a full-blown blush now. “Hey, what do you say I walk you home? Those two could be a while.”

She glances over his shoulder where he’s gestured at Kaitlyn and Andrew, still thoroughly wrapped up in each other and clearly without regard for their waiting friends. She nods, and lets him lead her to the building’s exit.

They walk in silence through the cold night and sharp wind. A shiver runs through her and she pulls her big puffy coat tighter around herself.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a warm arm wrapped around her shoulders and she found herself pulled into Scott’s side. She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it quickly when she felt his body heat seeping through their combined layers and settling itself deep in her bones. She let him hold her the rest of the way home.

She expected his arm to retract upon entrance into their building, but instead found his grip lightened, no longer wrapped around her under the guise of shared warmth but now a friendly gesture. She raised an eyebrow to herself, but didn’t say a word.

She ignores the fact that they walk directly past his room to pause outside her own door. He turns to face her, and she admires his cold-flushed face and sweat-curled hair. He looks soft and warm in the hallway light, and she has a sudden and terrifying thought of what it would be like to kiss him.

Before she can ruminate on that particular self-betrayal, or, worse, act on it, he sweeps her up into a massive hug. He’s just as warm as he had been out in the biting air, his warmth filling her up from head to toe. His head tucks into the junction of her neck and shoulder and she can feel every puff of hot breath against a rare strip of exposed skin. His arms wrapped around her torso feel like the best kind of constraint, and she could swear she could pinpoint every point at which their bodies are touching, from each of his finger tips, splayed across her back, down to his hairs tickling across her neck. She squeezes her arms around his broad shoulders, committing the feeling to memory.

It’s the best hug she’s ever had.

He pulls away, eyes downcast, and turns toward his own room with a pained smile and a curt wave.

Weird.

++

From that point on, things get both better and weirder. She’s not entirely sure what changes but he’s suddenly slightly more tolerable. They wave to each other when they see one another now. When he walks into the lounge to find her reading, he’ll join her on the couch, still closer than she’d like, but willing to sit in companionable silence. She accompanies Kaitlyn to a few more hockey games, which grow ever more frequent as Kaitlyn’s relationship with Andrew blossoms, and Tessa finds herself following Scott with her eyes throughout every game. And even though their schedules have changed, she still makes sure to walk down the hall when she knows he’s getting out of the shower.

By April, Tessa realizes she’s become friends with Scott Moir.

They’re in the lounge, Tessa and Scott on opposite ends of the same couch, feet almost touching where they meet in the middle. Kaitlyn and Andrew are curled up together on the couch opposite them, and Patrick, who Tessa has resignedly begun to refer to as “Chiddy,” is sitting cross legged on the ground at the coffee table between them.

“We should play a game,” Patrick suggests, looking toward the bookcase shoved full of old, fraying board games. Tessa’s eyes light up at the suggestion.

“No, no. Absolutely not.” Scott immediately recognizes the devilish look on Tessa’s face. “I know that look. We are not playing monopoly, T.”

The smile falls from her lips and she lets out an incredulous gasp. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that nobody wants to be crushed by you, Virtch.” Scott shakes his head, easing himself off the couch and over to the bookshelf and pulling a small black box off the precarious pile. “Besides, this will be so much more fun.”

She groans when he turns around, revealing the Cards Against Humanity box.

“Of course you want to play that, perv.” He just sticks his tongue out at her before resuming game set up.

“Of course you don’t want to play, it’s the only game you can’t win.” Scott smirked at her as he dealt everyone their cards.

“Oh, it is so on, Moir.” It was true that Tessa had never won a game of Cards Against Humanity, and not for lack of trying. She was convinced that she was just always dealt a bad hand, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her this time. She was going to destroy this game.

“It’s on, huh?” Scott laughed. “Well, in that case, I think we need to make this more interesting.”

He jumped up and practically sprinted out of the room, leaving his friends ready to play and exchanging concerned and confused looks.

It wasn’t long before he returned, however, a bottle of cheap vodka in hand and a smirk across his features.

“Losers do shots.” 

The game started with Scott judging. “I’m going on a cleanse this week. Nothing but kale juice and blank,” he read the card out dramatically, taking on an intonation that Tessa thought sounded suspiciously like herself.

Tessa shuffled through the white cards in her hands, furrowing her brow in concentration. When she came across the perfect card, she allowed a wicked smile to cross her face, before dropping the card onto the pile on the table. 

Scott leaned forward to collect the cards, shooting Tessa a look of mock worry. He slowly shuffled the four white response cards before reading each out. 

“Alright. I’m going on a cleanse this week. Nothing but kale juice and…” He repeated the card before filling in the blank, “an endless stream of diarrhea. Oh, gross.”  
  
The whole room cringed at that, but laughed and Scott moved on.

“Nothing but kale juice and drinking alone,” he laid the second card out on the table. Tessa smiled, these were good, but not good enough. “Nothing but kale juice and the heart of a child, oh my god.” 

They all laughed at that one, but Tessa knew it wouldn’t be enough to beat her. She restrained the proud smile that was tugging at her mouth, careful not to give herself away.

“Okay, last one,” Scott announced, glancing down at the final card in his hand. “Nothing but kale juice and… the blood of Christ.”

The room erupted at that, and Tessa knew she’d won. When Scott announced it, confirming her confidence, she allowed the cocky smirk to pull across her face, delicately plucking the black card from Scott’s hand and pointedly passing the bottle of vodka to Chiddy, who was still sitting on the floor.

This was going to be fun.

Forty five minutes later and Tessa was stretched comfortably along the couch, three shots in and with six black cards tucked under her leg. She only needed one more to win.

She’d won “when I am President, I will create the Department of blank” with “geese” (because Canada), “why am I sticky?” with “worshipping that pussy” (“and what would you know about that, Scotty?”), “introducing X-treme Baseball! It’s like baseball, but with blank!” with “fragile masculinity” (thanks to Kaitlyn judging), “50% of all marriages end in blank” with “an older woman who knows her way around a penis” (“you know, the 50% that don’t end in divorce”), and “what’s there a ton of in heaven?” with “vigorous jazz hands” (she’s not entirely sure how she won that one, but figured it was the result of her friends’ various stages of intoxication).

She was confident in her ability, and far too proud of her mostly-sober state while her friends rolled around, hysterical, having each taken several more shots than she had. It was clear; none of them could compete with Tessa tonight.

Except, perhaps, Scott. Tessa had started out strong, but in the last few rounds Scott had nearly caught up to her. He had five black cards to her six, and she was getting worried.

She pulled her lip between her teeth as she considered her cards. Kaitlyn was judging, and if she got this round she would win the game. The black card on the table read, “hey Reddit! I’m blank. Ask me anything.”

Sorting through her cards, Tessa nearly gave in. She didn’t have anything funny to play, and judging by the shit-eating grin on Scott’s face, he’d played something killer. She needed a winner.

She sighed at the dismal array of cards in her hands, before making a decision.

It may not make much sense, but she’d have to rely on the bizarre. Hopefully Kaitlyn, who had amassed zero black cards and had done the most shots of anyone in the group, would lose her mind over the funny card. Tessa crossed her fingers.

“Okay!” Kaitlyn trilled as Tessa put down her card. “Here we go!”

Kaitlyn shuffled the cards around, swaying slightly until Andrew wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

“Hey Reddit!” Kaitlyn began, reading off the card. “I’m judging everyone. Ask me anything. Hmm, not funny.” She pouted, before putting the card down on the table.

“I’m announcing that I’m about to cum.” Kaitlyn giggled at that, and a quick glance at Scott confirmed to Tessa that had been his card. She rolled her eyes. “I’m your weird brother.”

Kaitlyn continued, and Tessa settled back into the couch. She was grateful that no one had played a card that was an out-of-the-park winner. Maybe she still had this.

At last, Kaitlyn began reading the last white card in her hand.

“I’m… oh my god.” The girl’s eyes widened as they tracked down the card, and she was immediately sent into a fit of giggles. “Oh my god! I’m… I’m eating,” she choked out around her laughter, “okay. I’m eating a hard boiled egg… out of my husband’s…” her laughter took over for a moment, before she collected herself enough to finish reading. “Out of my husband’s asshole. Ask me anything.”

She threw the card down onto the table in the middle of the room.

“Now that’s a winner.” Tessa let out a triumphant whoop the moment the words left Kaitlyn’s lips.

“Aha! Suck on that, Moir!” She hollered, leaping off the couch and doing a celebratory dance across the room. She wrapped her arms around Kaitlyn’s neck.

“I can’t believe this.” Scott shook his head, incredulous. “She beat me in the game I picked knowing she couldn’t win. How the fuck did this happen.”

He directed the questions toward Chiddy, who hadn’t moved from his position on the floor, and just looked up at Scott with wide, glazed over eyes.

“Why are you asking me, man?”

Scott just laughed and leaned forward to clap the boy on the back.

“Alright, game queen,” Scott turned his attention back toward Tessa, who was still dancing in the doorway. “Let’s go. You’re clearly delirious and need sleep.”

Tessa paused her dancing to send Scott an offended glare. “Excuse me? I am celebrating my victory, a victory that was rightfully earned despite all the odds being stacked against me!" 

Scott just shook his head, crossing the room and herding Tessa out into the hallway. He maintained a pout, but his eyes were soft as he wrapped his arms around Tessa and led them down the hall toward their rooms.

They walked straight past his room, as was customary between them now, before pausing outside of Tessa’s. She turned, and he wrapped his arms more fully around her in the hug she’d come to expect and adore. She wrapped herself around him in response, breathing him in, before stepping back slightly. 

“Goodnight, Scott.” She whispered.

“Goodnight, T.”

With that, Tessa stepped inside her room and shut the door behind her.


	2. sophomore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She slid into one of the barstools at the kitchen island, gladly accepting the glass of wine he poured for her, and staying as far from the cooking action as possible. She watched him move about the kitchen, dicing vegetables and heating sauce, making silly remarks every now and then to get her to laugh.
> 
> And yeah, maybe moving in with two college boys wasn’t her smartest decision. But it was worth it for nights like this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! I absolutely adore this chap and I hope you do, too!
> 
> Warning that this chapter does contain a brief mention of a potentially non-consensual sexual encounter.

Two weeks into her second year of college, Tessa decides that moving into a house with Scott and Chiddy was perhaps not her smartest idea.

It’s not that she doesn’t love living with them. That’s not it at all. 

It’s just that they’re 19- and 20-year old boys, and they live like it. She’d seen their dorm last year. Had smelled their bathroom. She shouldn’t be surprised that their house isn’t any different.

So two weeks into September, Tessa comes home from class to find another stain on the white couch she’d picked out for their living room, chucks yet another pair of dirty gym shorts down the hallway of the boys’ rooms, and cleans up two plates that she didn’t dirty, before flinging herself into bed, tears of frustration prickling behind her eyes.

She’s not sure what possessed her to rent a house with her two male friends, but she thinks it must be a devil.

But then the door opens, and she hears the familiar sound of keys dropping into the bowl by the door, plastic shopping bags being placed on the kitchen counter, socked feet shuffling across the carpeted hallway, a gentle knock on her bedroom door.

“Hey kiddo, how was your day?” And of course, there’s the reason she agreed to this, shuffling into her room. It was Scott, always Scott. 

Scott making her dinner nearly every night, even after she told him he didn’t have to (though she prayed he’d never stop). Scott walking her to class every morning, even though his didn’t start for an hour and were on the opposite end of campus. Scott coming into her room every afternoon to ask her how her day was. Everything Scott, always Scott.

“It was shit.” She grumbles, peeking at him only briefly to admire the way his t-shirt stretches over his torso before remembering she’s mad at him and burying her face back into her pillow.

“’M sorry about that, T.” He doesn’t seem to get the memo that she’s upset with him, perching on the edge of her bed and rubbing a soothing hand over her back. It takes all of her resolve not to moan at the contact, and she bears down on the anger that’s still bubbling at the edges of her vision and in the back of her throat.

“I’m mad at you.” She says, finally turning her head fully to look at him. His eyes go wide at this, and he pulls his hand away as if he’d been burnt by their contact. She fails to contain a whimper at the loss of contact. “No, don’t stop.”

His hand returns to her back and she melts into his touch once more.

“I’m sorry you had a shitty day,” Scott said. “And I’m sorry for whatever you’re mad at me for.”

Tessa turned her face once more to look at him, noting the genuine apology in his eyes. “It’s okay. I’m not really that mad at you.”

Scott smiled, squeezing her shoulder where his hand was still rubbing soft circles. “How about I make it up to you with some dinner?” 

“This is why you’re my favorite.” She told him, accepting the hand he held out to help her out of the bed, and following him into the kitchen. 

She slid into one of the barstools at the kitchen island, gladly accepting the glass of wine he poured for her, and staying as far from the cooking action as possible. She watched him move about the kitchen, dicing vegetables and heating sauce, making silly remarks every now and then to get her to laugh.

And yeah, maybe moving in with two college boys wasn’t her smartest decision. But it was worth it for nights like this one.

She tries her best to ignore the domesticity of it all. She knows that their dinners and late night conversations are pushing platonic boundaries. She knows that sometimes she holds him too long, and she thinks maybe sometimes he’s hesitant to let go as well. She’s heard Kaitlyn complain that Tessa and Scott are more intimate than her and Andrew. She knows that she spends a little too much time staring at her best friend’s mouth.

But that’s just it; he’s her best friend. There’s no one she wants to spend time with more than him, no one she wants to talk to at the end of a long, shitty day more than him, no one she wants to see more than him.

She’s absolutely not going to risk that by doing something dumb, like kissing him. 

She’s perfectly content with their dinners and goodnight hugs in the hallway, sitting closer than necessary on the couch when they watch a movie together, and basically pretending their third housemate doesn’t exist 90% of the time.

That’s just how things are between them, and she doesn’t want to jeopardize any of it.

++

Unfortunately, as the semester wears on, she sees Scott less and less. Hockey preseason picks up, and he’s at practice every other night. She joins the school dance company, and has her own rehearsals to schedule around. And then there’s the fact that they’re both relatively attentive university students, with homework and studying to do to various stages of completion. (Tessa always has her assignments completed and ready to turn in at least an hour in advance. She’s not so confident in Scott.)

After a grueling week of dancing around each other on seemingly opposite schedules (she’d found him on the couch at 11am after class one Tuesday, dead to the world), they finally find the time to sit down for dinner together.

Chiddy’s staying with his girlfriend for the weekend so they have the house to themselves. He’s made a salmon dish that she eyes warily before giving in and trying it and conceding that it’s delicious and he’s a god in the kitchen. They drink wine and talk about the mundane goings on of their weeks. She smiles at him over her wine glass and his grin lights up the whole house.

They finish their dinner and move to the couch, turning on a show neither of them cares about and continuing their conversation. She feels entirely wrapped up in him, from his heavy arm hanging over her shoulders to his voice coating her mind. She wants to stay there forever.

And then he says something that has her freezing, suddenly stiff in his arms.

“We need to have, like, a regular date night.” He says it casually, almost offhandedly, but her spine immediately straightens and she thinks she has whiplash from how quickly her head snaps around to look at him. 

“A date night?” She raises an eyebrow. This is not where she thought this night was going.

“Well, I mean.” Scott’s stuttering now, clearly alarmed at her reaction. She watches as his tongue pokes out of his mouth to lick his lips. “Not like, a _date-_ date night.”

He’s trying to reassure her, and she’s not sure if it’s working or not.

“Like a friend date.” He decides, nodding. “A night once a week where we have dinner and hang out and actually get to see each other.”

“So, like a date.” She’s teasing him now, confident in his intention. He lets out a sigh, more dramatic than she knows he feels, for her benefit. 

“Like a _friend_ date. No romantic feelings required.”

She laughs at this, relaxing back into his side. “Okay, I’m in. A not-a-date-date, friend date night.”

They settle on leaving their Friday nights free, promising dinner and movies just for the two of them. A chance to catch up, a pause in their hectic lives, a time to be together, as best friends.

 _No romantic feelings required_. Hours later, as she lies wrapped up in a duvet that acts as a poor substitute for his arms, his words continue to bounce around her head. He could have just as easily said “no romantic feelings _involved_ ,” but he hadn’t. She’s glad he hadn’t. She’s not sure she could have promised that.

++

“Tessa Virtue.” It’s mid-February when her door swings open and Kaitlyn’s voice rings through the room. Tessa looks up from where she’s curled up in bed with her novel, glasses slipping down her nose and a cup of coffee on her bedside table, half drunk and growing cold. “It is Saturday night, and you are coming out with me.” 

Scott and Patrick are both out of the house, and Tessa had been looking forward to a quiet, blissful night alone.

She looks up from her book, shooting the other girl a skeptical look. “I am?” She raises an eyebrow. “Wait, how did you get into my house?”

“You are.” Tessa opens her mouth to argue, but Kaitlyn cuts her off before she can even begin. “No arguments! We’ve been back for weeks and you haven’t been to a single party! I know you don’t have homework to do, you have no excuse. And Scott gave me his key, obviously.”

“Kait, it’s really not my scene.” Kaitlyn shakes her head, turning to Tessa’s closet and digging through her clothes. 

“Nope! You’re coming with me!” Kaitlyn pulls out several shirts, laying them over the foot of Tessa’s bed and considering each one.

“You’re not giving me a choice.” The grin on the other girl’s face is devilish.

“Now she’s getting it. Put this on.” And then the book in Tessa’s lap is replaced with a shirt and jeans and Kaitlyn is tugging Tessa up from her comfy spot, sitting in her place and shooing Tessa away.

Grumbling, Tessa changes out of her pajamas into the ripped jeans and revealing top Kaitlyn had somehow managed to find in Tessa’s closet. She lets out a resigned sigh when she checks the outfit in the mirror. She has to admit, Kaitlyn knows how to make her look good.

“Ugh, you look hot.” Kaitlyn grumbled, admiring her own handiwork. “It’s so unfair that you look like that and yet never go out and live up to your potential to be this hot.”

Tessa just laughed and rolled her eyes, moving to her desk to put on some concealer and mascara. 

“Nuh-uh!” Kaitlyn screeched, flying out of Tessa’s bed to where Tessa was standing with the two tubes of makeup in one hand. “There will be none of this minimal-yet-flawless makeup bullshit tonight. I’ve made it my mission to make you party-ready, and this is part of it.”

Kaitlyn tugged the tubes from Tessa’s hands, moving to dig through Tessa’s small makeup collection. She wondered briefly if she should be offended by Kaitlyn’s words, but decided that the girl had good intentions and let it go. 

“Okay. Sit.” Kaitlyn demanded, pointing Tessa to the desk chair. Tessa sat. Kaitlyn turned back to her, wielding a brush and an eye shadow pallet. Tessa sighed, closing her eyes and resigning herself to her fate.

After half an hour of Kaitlyn’s attention, Tessa was deemed ready to go. She pulled on her Kaitlyn-approved Adidas sneakers, pocketed her phone and keys, and followed her friend out into the night.

She couldn’t believe she’d been roped into this. 

Kaitlyn directed them to a house only a few blocks from her own, and Tessa followed dutifully. Inside, the music was loud and the alcohol was flowing. Tessa could smell it mingling with the sweat coming from the crowd gathered in the middle of the living room. Kaitlyn smiled over her shoulder at Tessa, who was eying the crowd warily, before grabbing her wrist and tugging her into the kitchen.

Tessa didn’t question how Kaitlyn knew the house so well, instead accepting the cup the girl handed her. 

“Liquid courage, eh?” She smiled at her friend before taking a large sip. It was a mixed drink of some sort, and Tessa knew it wouldn’t take much to get her tipsy. She followed Kaitlyn back into the living room and took another swig as she walked toward the dance floor.

Despite her protests, Tessa didn’t mind the party scene. After a couple of drinks she was able to ignore the voice in her mind that reminded her of the paper that she needed to write and the eyes that followed her hips and chest in a way that would make sober-Tessa want to melt into the floor.

She let the alcohol in her veins and the ever-present urge to dance take over. 

She couldn’t tell you how many hours passed as she moved on the dance floor, plastic cup after plastic cup pressed into her hand, hips swaying to the beat, hair sticking the back of her neck. Kaitlyn was replaced by some of the girls in Tessa’s psych class that she found bitchy when sober but tolerable when drunk, and then a crowd of their former hall mates from the previous year in the dorms. Tessa belted the lyrics to the bad music being pumped through the speakers, laughed at everything and nothing with her friends, and downed drink after fruity drink.

Before long, her feet hurt and sweat was cooling on her skin in the most uncomfortable of ways. She had a sudden desire to go home, crawl into her waiting bed, sleep for a thousand years. She searched for Kaitlyn with her eyes, confident that the other girl was lost somewhere in the crowd. 

When she failed to locate her friend in the crowded living room, Tessa began to edge her way off of the dance floor, intent on heading out alone. Before she could escape the mass of bodies, however, she felt large hands land on her waist from behind, pulling her backwards until she collided with a firm body. 

She whipped her head around, hair flying. The man behind her recoiled, but his expression of shock soon returned to a leer. He spun Tessa’s body around to face him, pressing their fronts together and grinding his hips forward.

Tessa wanted it to stop, wanted to kick and scream and run as far as possible, but the fog of alcohol intercepted each command she attempted to give her body. No matter how much her mind protested, she stood there, pliable in this stranger’s arms, allowing him to push and pull her as he pleased.

She felt light-headed, dizziness taking over her, and she thought she might throw up. She attempted to voice this, and found herself capable of little more than letting out a pitiful whimper. The man’s smile spread wider, his movements becoming rougher with each passing moment.

She thought she might die then and there.

And then there was a third hand on her, this one rougher and yet kinder, warm and familiar. He gripped her upper arm, pulling her out of the first man’s grasp. Tessa thought she heard a growl from somewhere above her, but couldn’t process where the sound had originated.

“Keep your hands off of her,” the newcomer warned, wrapping his free arm around Tessa’s shoulders and pointing her toward the door. Tessa perked up this. The voice was familiar, a comforting cadence even when threatening.

Tessa forced her eyes open, focused on the face hovering above her. He looked livid, anger bubbling behind those bright hazel eyes. She smiled slightly, reaching up to pat his cheek. 

“Hi, Scott,” she giggled, stumbling slightly as he continued to prod her toward home.

Scott was silent, fuming, until they stepped out into the cold night.

“What the fuck, Tessa?” He demanded the moment the door shut behind them. His arm was still wrapped around her shoulders, the other gripping her bicep. He directed them home, and she let him set the pace.

“What?” She looked up at him with wide eyes.

“What was that all about? That – the drinking, the dancing, whatever the fuck that was with Fedor? I thought you were staying home tonight?” They were still walking, and though she kept her gaze focused on the ground in front of them she could feel his eyes burning into the side of her head. 

“I changed my mind.”

“Fuck! You can’t do that, Tess!” She cringed at his volume, rising with his temper. She hoped he wouldn’t wake the neighbors. “You don’t get to go out and get all messed up like this!”

She looked up sharply at that.

“Excuse me?” She suddenly felt stone cold sober. “I can’t do that? I don’t get to? I’m not allowed?” 

He recoiled as she spat his words back out at him.

“And who are you to tell me what I can and can’t do, Scott? You’re not my dad, you’re not my brother. I’m not some damsel in distress for you to rescue!”

They’d arrived at their house. She ripped her arm from his grasp before stomping up the walk to the front door.

“Fuck you, Scott Moir.”

She turned on her heel, marching straight to her room, allowing the door to slam behind her.

She’d known, when Kaitlyn handed her the fourth cup the night before, that she would have regrets in the morning. She’d known that losing count of her drinks would only result in a splitting headache and hours over the toilet. She’d known that she would curse her drunken self, but she’d accepted the cup anyway.

When weak winter sunlight began to stream into her room, she groans and turns her face into her pillow, willing sleep to whisk her away once more.

However, after what might be five minutes or perhaps an eternity of constant pounding on the inside of her skull and no hope of returning to dreamland, she rolls over and gives into the hangover. She’s half-dead, but she’s awake.

She blinks her eyes open, adjusting to the light of the room, before turning her attention to the nightstand where she expects to find her phone.

Instead, she sees a glass of water, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a bar of chocolate.

She sits up eagerly, ignoring the throb of protest her head gives at the movement, throwing back the pills and practically swallowing them dry in her haste. She gulps down the water before turning her attention to the chocolate.

He hasn’t left a note, there’s no missed call or waiting text message, but she knows it’s from Scott. Despite her broken up memory from the night before, the memory of the two of them on the street stands complete and in vivid color. She sighs, taking a bite out of his peace offering. 

She knows she’ll forgive him. 

She could never really be that mad in the first place.

 ++

The spring semester drags on at a snail’s pace, and by late April Tessa fears it will never end. A horrible vision flashes through her mind, her at eighty, still sitting in her psych stats class, listening to her professor drone on about p-values and chi-square tests. And then, with a blink, she’s stepping out of her last final of the semester and she’s free.

A wave of relief falls over her as she hurries toward home, visions of aging and classrooms being replaced by clear water and sunny days by the lake.

It’s several hours before they are clamoring into Scott’s truck, suitcases and duffle bags and coolers piled up in the bed behind them. Tessa squeezes into the middle seat, Andrew in the passenger seat and Scott in the driver’s. Kaitlyn wiggles on top of Andrew’s lap, the seatbelt wrapped awkwardly around them both as the blonde girl clings to her boyfriend’s neck.

“If you get pulled over, we’re all going to jail,” Tessa tells Scott as he pulls out of the driveway and onto the road. He just laughs, reaching over to rustle Tessa’s hair. She groans. This is going to be a long trip. 

They finally arrive at her family’s cottage well after midnight. Tessa had dropped off into sleep around the 45-minute mark, and she wakes up groggy and confused, held tight in Scott’s arms.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” He chuckles at the wide-eyed alarm on her face as she regains consciousness. “Don’t panic, we’re at the cottage. I’m putting you to bed.”

She relaxes in his arms at his words, content in her sleep-muddled state to wrap her arms around him, clinging to his neck, breathing in that smell that’s so distinctly _Scott_. She’s mostly asleep again before he even places her in her bed, but awake enough to register the soft kiss he drops to her forehead before exiting the room.

“Sweet dreams, T.”

The first few days of the trip pass in a blur. Patrick and his girlfriend, Liz, join them the next afternoon, and they spend the day lounging, getting accustomed to the new environment. The second day, Tessa leads the group down the hiking trail she’s hiked every summer she can remember.

The third day, they decide it’s finally time to spend the day at the lake.

Tessa gleefully leads the pack down to the water, showing them where to lay out their towels and blankets and coolers full of snacks and beers. She arranges her own things neatly, smoothing a blanket over the sand, placing her crisply folded towel at one end and her bag, containing sun block and her book, at the other. She kicks off her sandals and sheds her t-shirt and shorts, folding them quickly and placing them in the bag as well. When she’s completed her ritual to her satisfaction, she nods to herself before turning to follow her friends into the water.

It’s still early in the season and the water is frigid, but Tessa just clamps her jaw shut as to not reveal her chattering teeth.

Her friends are splashing through the icy waves with unabashed delight. She thinks she’s never seen five young adults act so much like children. It’s incredibly endearing.

She’s immediately drawn into the fold when she approaches the group.

“Damn, Virtue! Lookin’ hot!” Andrew calls out at her, followed by a wolf whistle, and Tessa rolls her eyes. She’s in a dark blue bikini, one Kaitlyn had picked out for her. It’s not sexy, per se, with it’s wide straps and just barely cheeky bottoms, but Kaitlyn’s eyes had gone comically wide when she had stepped out of the dressing room, so she supposes she must look good in it.

“Don’t you have something slightly less disgusting to do with that mouth, Poje?” She snaps back. “Like maybe making out with your _girlfriend_?”

His face splits into a lewd smile and she regrets her words instantly. Her friends are laughing around her, and Andrew pulls Kaitlyn into his arms and starts kissing her obnoxiously, and Tessa feels a hot blush creeping steadily across her skin.

Before she can run as far and as fast as possible and hide in a hole forever, though, strong arms wrap around her waist from behind and she’s flung into the air as Scott twirls her around. She shrieks and flails in his arms, but by the time she’s back in the water and standing on two feet, she’s grinning up at him.

“You really set yourself up for that one, eh, T?” He goads her as she turns in his arms, and he loosens his hold on her to poke a finger into her ribs. She groans in embarrassment and tucks her head into his neck. He tightens his arms around her waist once more, and she settles against him comfortably.

They stay like that for a while, shifting positions so that they can talk with their friends, but she remains tucked against him and his arms never abandon their hold on her. She soaks in the warmth of the sun and cool lapping of the water against her body and warmth of her best friend by her side and ignores Kaitlyn’s pointed looks.

“I’m bored,” Kaitlyn announces eventually, before her face lights up and she turns to whisper with Andrew for a moment. When Tessa meets her eyes again she is immediately uneasy. That look is dangerous. “We should have a chicken fight.”

Tessa knows that there are six of them, so theoretically she doesn’t _have_ to play, but the glint in Kaitlyn’s eye tells her she’s not getting out of this.

Chiddy’s shaking his head vehemently, tugging Liz’s arm to move them away from the group. Kaitlyn smiles evilly.

“Well, Tess? Scott? What do you say?” Kaitlyn asks, but Tessa knows she’s not really asking. What Kaitlyn wants, she gets.

Scott immediately nods in agreement, grinning down at Tessa, who turns to eye him apprehensively. Scott all but begs her with his eyes, and she sighs and acquiesces.

“Fine, I’m in.”

Scott lets out a whoop and sweeps her out of the water once more.

“Dream team, kiddo!” He cackles as he spins her around, before setting her back down and motioning for her to climb up onto his shoulders.

“Just don’t drop me, okay? I have a show next month and I need these legs.” Scott stills below her and puts a hand on her thigh to still her as she clamors up his broad back (if her mouth waters slightly at the musculature beneath her hands, she’ll never tell). He twists to look her in the eye. 

“Never.”

His voice is soft and sincere, a sharp contrast from the joking tone of the afternoon. Tessa wants to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight, but instead she climbs further up his back and settles herself around his shoulders.

They square off to face Andrew and Kaitlyn. Andrew is significantly taller than Scott, and Kaitlyn towers over Tessa from her position on her boyfriend’s shoulders. Tessa glances down at Scott, only to find him trying to twist his head to see up into her face, leaving him straining and slightly cross-eyed. She laughs and threads a hand into his hair.

“Dream team?” She asks.

“Dream team.” He replies.

Tessa removes her hand from Scott’s hair and extends her arms in front of her.

“Chiddy, would you please do the countdown?” Kaitlyn asks, and Patrick nods, not leaving his spot a generous distance from the fight.

“Okay, ready?” He practically has to shout in order for his voice to carry to them. “Three… two… one… fight!”

Scott lurches forward underneath her and Tessa flexes her thighs around his head. Her arms come into contact Kaitlyn’s, and Tessa pushes as hard as she can against the other girl’s shoulders.

Kaitlyn is strong, but Tessa knows she’s stronger. She tightens her abs and ignores the tickle of Scott’s hair against her exposed skin, hooks her legs around his waist, trusts the strong hold he has on her knees. She can feel him breathing heavily below her, but she ignores it in favor of locating Kaitlyn’s weak spots. She watches as the other girl swipes with her right arm, and reaches toward Kaitlyn’s left side as Scott takes a step in the same direction beneath her.

Together, Tessa and Scott send their joint body weight towards Kaitlyn’s left shoulder, and the girl can’t anticipate the force. She goes tumbling backwards off of Andrew’s shoulders, blonde hair whipping around her head and limbs flailing, before hitting the water with a splash.

Scott cheers beneath her, spinning around in little circles and never letting Tessa sway from her position above him.

“We did it, kiddo!” She can’t see his face, but she knows he’s beaming. “You wanna get down?”

In all honesty, she wouldn’t mind staying there forever, her legs wrapped around Scott’s head, her hands weaving through his hair, his spread across her thighs protectively. But she knows that’s not realistic, and maybe crossing a boundary she doesn’t want to think about, so she slowly unwraps her legs from their position over his shoulders, lets her hands find purchase at the back of his neck and his shoulder, and slides slowly down his back and into the water.

He turns around immediately to envelop her into one of those hugs she lives for now. She admires him above her, his hair tousled from her fingers, eyes warm and crinkling, and face cracked wide open in the biggest grin he can manage. He tucks his head into the junction of her shoulder and her neck, ghosting his lips over her skin, puffing hot breath into the space there.

“Dream team,” he whispers against her collarbone, and she sighs against him. _Dream team, indeed,_ she thinks.

Hours pass and the sun begins to sink lower in the sky, painting the sky gold and pink and daring to slip below the water at the horizon. The group resigns themselves to making their way out of the water, gathering their things and heading back toward the cottage.

Tessa is hyperaware of the way Scott’s arm never leaves her waist for long.

When the group completes the short walk up the beach back to the house, they don’t even bother going inside before firing up the grill on the back porch. They sit around for a bit, drinking beer and wrapping blankets around themselves to ward against the cold before the dinner venture sets off.

When Tessa drains the last of her second beer, Kaitlyn grabs her wrist and practically drags her off the couch she’s sharing with Scott, forcing her into the house and through to the kitchen.

Kaitlyn begins pulling out things to make a salad, and Tessa leans against the counter. They all know Kaitlyn didn’t bring her inside to help make dinner, and Tessa’s just waiting for Kaitlyn to come out with it.

“So…” the girl starts, chopping up a bell pepper. “You and Scott seemed pretty cozy out there.”

Tessa makes a noncommittal noise and pours herself a glass of wine. She holds a glass out for Kaitlyn as well, and the other girl accepts readily.

“Anything you’d like to share, Tess?” Kaitlyn prompts further, dumping the peppers into a large bowl and daring Tessa not to answer with her gaze.

“Honestly, Kait, there’s nothing to share.” Tessa braces her arms against the kitchen island as Kaitlyn rolls her eyes.

“Come on, Tess. You can’t just act like… _that_ , and then turn around and say nothing’s going on!”

“But nothing is going on!” Tessa hates how shrill her voice sounds as she grows defensive. “And act like what?”

“Are you kidding me? You touch constantly, he gropes your ass for hours, you’re practically eye fucking in front of all your friends, and I’m pretty sure you came just from his hands on your thighs during that chicken fight.” Kaitlyn scoffs as she tosses the salad as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Wh-what?” Tessa cries incredulously. “We – eye fucking? Ass groping? Kait, none of that happened! We haven’t been acting any differently than we always have!”

“Well, that’s absolutely not true, Tess.” Kaitlyn’s grabbing utensils now, and Tessa starts to follow her back towards the porch. “A year ago the two of you could barely be in the same room together. Now, you’re having date nights and are constantly physically intimate, and, yes, you eye fuck each other in front of all of your friends.”

Tessa wants to respond, to justify all of her and Scott’s actions, but Kaitlyn has stepped through the doorway and back onto the porch where their friends await them and she’s not sure she can justify all of them, anyway.

She sighs in resignation and follows her friend back into the night.

They eat dinner around the fire pit, curled up on couches with blankets draped over their laps. A shiver runs through Tessa’s body, and Scott pulls her against him, an arm wrapped securely around her shoulders and her head against his chest.

Kaitlyn gives her a look over her salad, but doesn’t say anything.

By the end of the night, Tessa is full of good food and boisterous laughter and she can’t remember how many glasses of wine she’s had but her insides are delightfully bubbly, so she allows Scott to prop her up against him and lead her back to the house. 

She wishes a loud good night to Chiddy and Liz and Andrew and Kaitlyn, to which Scott just laughs and shakes his head. She looks up at him and he’s looking back at her and she thinks that nothing in the world shimmers as brightly as his amber eyes, not even the sun. 

And maybe she’s a little drunk, but when he wraps her up in his arms outside her door in their customary goodnight hug, something feels different. He pulls back slightly, and then his face is right in front of her, and she doesn’t know who moves first but then his lips are pressed against hers and if his arms weren’t wrapped securely around her waist she thinks she might melt straight into the floor.

She opens her mouth slightly, shifting forward to slot their lips together, but he pulls back a millimeter and she pauses. 

Her eyes flutter open, and she hadn’t even realized she’d closed them in the first place, but his eyes are right in front of hers and he’s looking at her so earnestly she thinks he must be able to see deep into her soul.

“Are you drunk?” He whispers and she can feel the words brush against her own mouth.

“No,” she says, and it’s true. She’s never felt more sober.

“Okay,” he says, and then he kisses her again, and kisses her some more, and she never wants it to end. But after an eternity and altogether too soon, Scott pulls away again, brushing his lips over the corner of her mouth before he says, “you should go to bed, Tess.”

Her entire body is screaming at her that _no, if she’s getting into bed it should definitely be with him_ , but she just nods. There’s apprehension building at the back of her throat and she knows that they can pretend this never happened but if she invites him inside they can never go back. So she nods, and turns to open the door to her room.

“Goodnight, Scott.” She says, stepping into the room.

“Night, Tess.” She closes the door, and then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I may have gotten a little carried away with this and 45% of it may be their beach trip oops. I just got so into it and wow I really loved writing it, so if you liked it please let me know (and if you hated it please be kind).


	3. junior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of her afternoon is filled with charts and data plots and Scott, Scott, Scott. As much as she tries to block him from her mind, to pay all of her attention to the task at hand, her mind and body betray her as she hears her name on his lips on a loop in her mind.
> 
> She’s heard him say it so many times, running down hallways to catch up with her and laughing across a dinner table and whispered through a dark room to see if she’d fallen asleep in the middle of a movie again. The sounds curl across his tongue like his mouth was made to utter those two syllables.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, folks. This one is long. And a rollercoaster.
> 
> I got some comments on the last chapter about how excited y'all were for junior year, hoping it would be light and fun and angst-free. So, preemptively: I'm sorry.

When Tessa moves in to her apartment for her third year at university, she is confident that this is it. This is the year that she will have her perfect college life.

She had promised Kaitlyn they would live together again this year after Andrew dumped her at the beginning of the summer. Kaitlyn had called Tessa in a panic, under the impression that she was suddenly homeless for the next year.

“Kait, it’ll be okay. You can sleep on an air mattress on my floor if you have to,” Tessa had assured her.

“Tess, you absolute goddess. I love you more than anyone in the world.” Kaitlyn had cried out dramatically in response. Tessa laughed at her friend’s dramatics, rolling her eyes though she knew the other girl couldn’t see.

It was a week later when Kaitlyn forwarded her the email, advertising an apartment for rent from a senior desperately looking for roommates. The girl, Meagan, was a friend of a friend of Kaitlyn’s, and the offer was too good to pass up.

So come August, Tessa found herself once again packing up her things from her mom’s house in London, piling too many suitcases in the back of her car, and making the drive back to Toronto.

The apartment was perfect, just big enough for the four of them, Kaitlyn, Tessa, Meagan, and Kaetlyn, a sophomore whom none of them knew but Tessa thought seemed sweet enough. Tessa picked a room, stepping into the bright space and smiling. She could work with this.

She moves her stuff in and before she knows it, the semester has begun and she’s in deep in her studies once more.

The four girls grow close quickly, finding shared interests and proximity enough to form a tight bond. Meagan seemed quiet at first, but she’d warmed up fast, revealing a kind heart and infectious laugh. Tessa knew she liked Kaetlyn immediately, and before the end of the first week of the semester they were laughing over Tessa’s lack of cooking skills until late in the night.

Tessa was thrilled to find her life, typically occupied with studying and work and a new position analyzing data for one of her professors, supplemented with adventures and laughter.

She hadn’t forgotten about Scott, though.

She doesn’t see him a single time in the first three weeks of school, and she’s increasingly aware of the missing figure in the background of her life. After their trip at the beginning of the summer, and particularly that kiss, she hadn’t been sure how things would be between them. For the rest of the week they spent at the lake, she waited patiently for him to make a move, ask her out, pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless again. 

It never came. 

By the end of the week, they’d returned to normal. He teased her, she mussed up his hair, they judged their friends together, he wrapped his arms around her amicably. 

As they stood on the beach the last day, one of his arms wrapped around her waist, a warm hand splayed across her side, she wondered if he was keeping her at an arm’s length. And then he dug his fingers into her side, bored of the contemplative mood, insistent on getting her to laugh. She surrendered to his tickle-attack, letting go of her questions and allowing herself to be content with whatever he would give her.

And then they went home, and he packed up his stuff to head back to Ilderton, and she stayed in Toronto to work, and he hugged her goodbye and said he’d text her, and then he was gone. Tessa thinks that was the moment things had started to change, and she’s not sure if she’ll ever get them back to how they were.

She knows he must be back in town now, classes having started a few weeks back, but she hasn’t heard from him. In fact, the last time she had heard from him was Canada Day, when, rather than being invited to his family’s annual barbecue like the summer before, he’d texted her a line of Canadian flag emojis.

She had wondered if this was what their relationship was now, a complete one eighty from making out at the lake to a text composed entirely of emojis that she didn’t think he knew existed in the span of six weeks.

And now she hasn’t heard from him in months, the longest they’ve gone without contact since their freshman year, and she’s really not sure where they stand.

And then she gets the text.

_hi kiddo! havent seen u much recently, everything ok?_

Scott has always had a lot of nicknames for her. “Virtch” and “T-dog” had rung out as he called down the hall their first year. “Tess” and “T” had been uttered softly across dinners and breathed against her shoulder when they had lived together in their second year. 

The nicknames had always rolled off his tongue, curled up in his mouth, something he made special just for her. Even when the names were created just to piss her off, they made something warm bubble up inside her because it was something he came up with just for her.

But kiddo… kiddo felt different.

It was a childish, infantilizing, baby-sister nickname. It wasn’t something you call your best friend, or the girl you made out with once, or the girl you maybe wanted to make out with again. 

She hated it.

She shoots him a text back, a short but sweet, _All good on this end! Hope you’re well._ and is done with it. She shuts off her phone and goes back to the data she’s supposed to be analyzing.

The rest of her afternoon is filled with charts and data plots and Scott, Scott, Scott. As much as she tries to block him from her mind, to pay all of her attention to the task at hand, her mind and body betray her as she hears her name on his lips on a loop in her mind.

She’s heard him say it so many times, running down hallways to catch up with her and laughing across a dinner table and whispered through a dark room to see if she’d fallen asleep in the middle of a movie again. The sounds curl across his tongue like his mouth was made to utter those two syllables.

But then it warps in her mind, the never ending loop of _Tessa, Tessa, Tessa,_ turning into _kiddo, kiddo, kiddo,_ and she’s so distracted she’s tried to code the same data entry four times.

She saves her half-finished work and shuts down the program. She only has half an hour left and she’s clearly not getting any work done as is, so she might as well head out now. She packs up her stuff and waves goodbye to her professor before ducking out into the night. 

Her walk home is short, but the night air is sharp against her skin and she longs for a warm arm to wrap around her shoulders and pull her into a warm embrace.

When she reaches her house, she falls into bed and lets the realization that maybe Scott will never want her the way she wants him fall over her, the knowledge as heavy as her thick duvet.

She cries herself to sleep that night.

++

There’s honestly nowhere in the world Tessa would like to be less than a house party at the house she’d called home the previous year, which is now being shared by Scott, Patrick, and Andrew. Nothing about lingering around that house, surrounded by guys from the hockey team and Kaitlyn’s ex-boyfriend and free flowing booze and _Scott_ sounds appealing to her.

But when the invitation had been extended, Kaitlyn had insisted they go. She’d argued that Tessa didn’t go out enough, and that there was bound to be good music and dancing, and that Kaitlyn needed to be in casual proximity to Andrew to get some closure, and that they needed to introduce Kaetlyn to the rest of their friends. Despite Tessa’s reluctance, she couldn’t deny the desperate look in her friend’s eyes, and she eventually gave in and accepted.

She regrets that particular decision the moment she steps across the threshold and sees her house – or, her _former_ house – trashed to pieces. It’s just gone ten pm, and already there are plastic cups littering every available surface, muddy footprints across the original hardwood, and ambiguous articles of clothing strewn across various pieces of furniture. Tessa cringes internally as she crosses the house to get to the kitchen.

She’s going to need a strong pour to get through this night.

Although she’d initially been apprehensive about bringing the younger girl, she finds herself immensely grateful to have Kaetlyn with her. Kaitlyn disappears into the throng of people almost immediately, leaving Tessa and Kaetlyn to fend for themselves.

Tessa mixes herself a drink before offering one to Kaetlyn, and then she gets swept up in introducing the newcomer to all the various people she has met through Scott throughout the years.

They’re deep in conversation with a girl named Ashley who’s dating one of the guys on the team when Tessa sees Scott for the first time that night.

She’d thought it odd that he hadn’t greeted her the moment she stepped through the door as he might have a year ago, but she’d shrugged it off, assuming he was busy hosting and thinking she’d talk to him later.

But then she spots him over Ashley’s shoulder and it is abundantly clear what it was that had been distracting him.

He’s off to the side of the dance floor; sweat staining his t-shirt and hair a mess at the top of his head and a grin splitting his face almost in half.

It’s a smile she once thought he reserved for her.

But now it’s directed at a tiny blonde girl, wrapped up in his arms, looking up at him like he’s the only person in the room. They must have been dancing at some point, but now they’re just swaying to a beat that doesn’t align with the music booming throughout the house.

He tilts his face down to whisper in her ear, causing her to break out in giggles. He smiles wider at that, before pulling her tighter into his arms and then Tessa is grateful she wore sneakers tonight because she’s running out of the room, barely pausing to locate her coat before tearing into the night. 

She could handle a lot of things, but watching Scott kiss a girl who wasn’t her was not one of them.

++

December came with a wind as bitter as Tessa felt. She stopped hanging out with Scott altogether, forfeiting her time with him so that some other girl could take her place. She threw herself into her studies, spending ungodly hours in the library and forgetting to eat.

It was one of those nights, one where she found herself in the deserted library at a quarter past two in the morning, surrounded by books and sheets of paper that no longer had any meaning to her. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep in the week prior, and she could feel her eyelids growing heavier. If she could just rest her head on the desk for a moment— 

An incessant buzzing startles her from her sleep. Hazily, she gropes for her phone, if only to shut it off so she could doze off again. But when she pickes it up, the name that flashes across the screen caught her eye.

She swipes to open the phone to her messages, and sure enough, there it was. A text from Scott, reading _do u need a ride home for xmas?_

She rolls her eyes, only Scott would text her at this hour for something so insignificant.

_Nope, not going home this year._ She types out in reply, assuming that would be the end of it.

She was wrong. Her phone was soon buzzing again, alerting her to a message reading, _what! why not?_

She rolls her eyes once more. If she kept this up, her eyes would end up permanently facing the back of her skull.

_Mom’s traveling, Jordan’s abroad, brothers have their own lives. I’ve nothing to go home to._ She replied, shaking her head. Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone?

As if he could hear her mental grumbling, her phone lit up with an incoming call from him. She sighed before picking up.

“What, Scott?” She did not have the patience for this right now. 

“Come home with me.” He says it so quickly she almost missed it. 

“What?” She cries out incredulously. She cringed at her volume, she may have been alone but she _was_ still in the library. 

“Come home with me for Christmas,” he repeats, earnestly. She could almost see the mischievous glint she knew would be sparkling in his eyes. “You know you’re always welcome at my house. My mom will be delighted.” 

Tessa had met the Moir family on multiple occasions now, joining family dinners at the Moir house over the past two Christmas breaks and crashing their epic Canada day party the summer after her freshman year. Mrs. Moir, or Alma, as she demanded Tessa call her, had taken an immediate liking to Tessa, referring to her as the daughter she’d never had, inviting her over at every opportunity. Scott joked that his mom liked her more than she liked him.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend you should be inviting?” She snaps. The thought of Alma and her warmth, of being welcomed into the Moir family for weeks as though she was one of them, it was too much. That was not something one did with their friends, not when they had a girlfriend.

“I-“ Scott stutters, shocked by Tessa’s outburst. “No.”

“No?” Tessa’s eyebrows shot into her hairline. 

“No.” Scott said firmly. “No, not right now. We’re taking a break.” 

Not right now. They’re taking a break. Not broken up, just a momentary pause. Tessa’s insides squirm at the thought, the idea that in a week they could be back together but for right now, he was all hers. She relished in the thought.

“Okay,” she breathed. If they were on a break, this may be her only opportunity to be with him without guilt. Maybe she was a terrible person, but she would take what she could get. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Scott asks. “Okay, you’ll come?”

“Yes. I’ll go home with you for Christmas.”

Tessa knows this trip is only going to hurt more, but she pushes all of her negative thoughts to the side and focuses on the fact that she’ll be spending two weeks with Scott and his family and no one who could make the situation any more awkward than it already is. 

He picks her up on Wednesday of their first week of break. He’d wanted to spend the whole three weeks in Ilderton, she had argued just for the week of Christmas, and they had come to the compromise of the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years. The two-hour drive to Ilderton feels longer than ever before, the radio tuned to a neutral pop station that they both hate with equal passion and the silence between them charged with unspoken questions.

She aches to ask him what the hell is going on, why did he invite her to come home with him, what’s the situation between him and the girl he’s been seeing for months and whose name she’s never bothered to ask for.

She doesn’t, though, instead watching the familiar landscape pass by in a blur and making polite conversation whenever the circumstances require it.

It’s as they’re pulling into Scott’s little hometown that he breaks. He looks over at her and she sees the pain in his eyes and she wants to fix it, reach out and smooth the wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes and the middle of his forehead. 

“Look, T,” he starts, holding her gaze as they stop at a red light. “I know things have been… different, this year.”

She hums in response, grateful when the light turns green and his eyes shift back to the road before them.

“I don’t really know what happened, but I’m pretty sure it’s my fault-“

“No!” She cuts him off. “God, no, Scott-“

“No, Tess, just listen to me, okay?” His eyes flicker back towards hers and she nods silently, giving him the floor. “Whatever happened, it’s probably my fault. And I’m still trying to figure out what it was-" 

She opens her mouth to protest once more but he surges on, not giving her a chance to cut him off again.

“- So I can’t apologize in specifics just yet but I am so sorry for whatever I did that created this chasm between us. I just, fuck, I miss you, T. I miss having dinner together and I miss your awful jokes and I miss having you around the house.”

“I miss that, too, Scott.” She cuts in, and he lets her.

“So let’s go back to the way it was.” They’ve pulled onto his street now and he’s slowing down, delaying their arrival at his childhood home. 

She looks over at him, meets his fierce gaze, and nods.

“Okay.” Her voice comes out barely above a whisper as she chokes on the hope building inside her. “Okay.”

He grins at her and pulls to a stop outside his house.

“Thank you, T.” His gaze softens as he turns the car off and climbs out and it’s like the past six months melt away.

The moment Tessa steps out of the car, the front door of the big, brown house is thrown open and Tessa finds herself wrapped up in a hug that only Alma Moir could give. She reciprocates, embracing the woman tenderly.

“Tessa Jane, it is wonderful to see you.” Alma takes a step back and looks Tessa up and down. “You just keep getting more and more beautiful.”

Tessa blushes under the older woman’s critical eye, accepting the compliment with a bashful smile and a tuck of her hair behind her ear. “Thanks, Alma.”

Scott rounds the back of the car at that moment to find his mother holding Tessa by the arms and not devoting an ounce of her attention to her own son.

“Hey, ma! It’s great to see you, too!” He grumbles as he brushes past the two women, his duffel bag in one hand and Tessa’s suitcase in the other.

“Gee, Scotty! Give a woman a chance to say hello to her guest!” Alma replies at Scott’s retreating back as he heads into the house.

“Yeah, yeah, we all know you just like Tess more than you like me!” Scott calls teasingly over his shoulder before climbing the stairs and disappearing from sight.

“That boy,” Alma sighs to Tessa, wrapping an arm around the girl’s shoulders and leading her into the house. “It really is so great to have you here, Tess. I’m glad Scott managed to convince you.”

“Oh, there wasn’t much convincing that needed to be done!” Tessa laughs in response. “Hanging out with the Moir clan sounds like a much more enjoyable way to spend my break than celebrating Christmas all alone in an empty apartment.”

Alma laughs at that, directing Tessa to a seat at the kitchen table and placing a tray of various baked goods before her. Tessa starts to protest, but Alma holds up a hand.

“You’re too skinny, Tess. Please, eat a brownie.”

Tessa shrinks into herself at the gentle scolding and picks up one of the gooey, still-warm brownies in front of her. She takes a bite and nearly lets out a moan.

“Oh, Alma. You’ve outdone yourself.” 

Alma just winks at that, turning back to the dinner she’d been preparing.

“Now, Tess. Tell me all about how this semester is treating you.”

The first few days of their time in Ilderton pass by in a blur of mornings spent exploring Scott’s hometown, afternoons in Alma’s kitchen (Tessa is relegated to dish washing after a near disastrous cookie-baking incident), and delightful discussions with Scott’s parents over delicious dinners. Tessa soaks in the relaxed atmosphere of being one of only four people taking up residence in the house, knowing it’s an unusual state of being and that as soon as Christmas descends upon them the house will devolve into its typical chaos.

One morning, Scott drags her out of bed (in a guest room that had once been his brother Charlie’s, located a pointed three doors down from Scott’s own room), tells her to put on workout gear, and leaves her with a smirk that has her both excited and nervous.

When she joins him in the kitchen, he greets her with a cup of coffee and a kiss on the cheek, and she is confident he’s buttering her up, now. He lets her eat breakfast and the moment the last bite passes her lips he’s grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the front door.

“Bye, mom!” He calls out as he plucks a large, black duffel from beside the front door. “We’ll be back in a bit!”

Tessa’s concern grows as Scott directs her a few blocks, the shit eating grin on his face growing wider with every step. It’s not until they stop outside a large building that it hits Tessa what his plan is, and she’s being ushered inside before she can protest.

“Scott, no.” She says as he leads her to a row of benches just outside the large rink.

“Scott, yes.” He replies, his eyes flashing with mirth. “Now, what’s your shoe size?”

She grumbles out a weak, “Seven,” and he turns and hops over the counter that separates the main area from the rental skate shop. He walks quickly between the rows of skates before plucking a pair off the shelf and sliding over the counter once again to present them to her.

“Now, rental skates suck, but these are probably the least shitty we have, so they’ll have to do.” He tells her before dropping down on the bench beside her and pulling his own skates out of his bag.

She’s surprised when she looks over and sees him pulling on skates that look far too much like the ones in front of her, featuring a long straight blade where she expects a curve, and a distinct toe pick at the front.

He notices her lack of movement and looks over at her. When he meets her eyes she raises her brows in a silent question.

“What?” He asks, eyes wide. “Am I not allowed to skate in more than one discipline?”

“No, I just…” Tessa trails off, not sure where her curiosity stems from. “I wasn’t expecting you to own figure skates, I guess.” 

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me Virtch,” he nudges her shoulder teasingly. “Now put your skates on! We don’t have all day!”

She gets to work, toeing off her tennis shoes and slipping her feet into the boots instead. She leans over to lace them up, but Scott holds out a hand and lets out a sound of protest, so she sits back up and lets him kneel before her.

“Let me know if it’s too tight, okay?” He says before plucking up the laces to her skates and threading them up the boot. He glances up at her to make sure they’re not too tight, and she nods in reassurance. He ties the first boot off and moves to the other.

Watching him crouched in front of her, doing an act he’s done thousands of times for himself, brow furrowed in concentration, pulls at something in Tessa’s chest. She wants to reach out and card her fingers through his hair, smooth the creases away in his forehead, kiss the corner of his mouth where it’s turned downward.

She does none of those things, sitting back in silence instead. When he finishes he sits back on his heels and looks up at her face. She quickly schools her face, hoping he can’t read the expression on her face, the longing and desire she feels threatening to bubble up to the surface. He smiles softly at her, pushing himself up off his knees into a standing position, and holds out his hand for her to take.

She accepts it, holding it loosely. She fights to keep the surprise she feels off her face as she feels him squeeze her palm in his and his pointer finger loop around her pinky. The action seems involuntary and a dark part of her wonders if this is how he holds his girlfriend’s hand.

She shoos that thought away to a far corner of her mind and follows him through the doors into the rink.

The air is cool and smells like something she can’t quite place. He pulls her to the opening of the boards and steps across onto the ice, not letting go of her hand and forcing her to waddle all the way up to the very edge of the ice.

But then she digs her feet in and refuses to step across the threshold. He tugs on her hand a few times before turning to look at her.

“Come on, T.” He says softly, moving to stand directly in front of her on the ice. She shakes her head slightly, fear suddenly building up in her stomach. She’s not sure if she could step onto the ice if she wanted to. She feels paralyzed.

Scott, somehow seemingly tuned in to every thought in her mind (she hopes and prays that’s not true, she’s been thinking about kissing him far too much the past few days for her to be comfortable with him knowing her thoughts), takes both of her hands in his and pulls himself as close to her as he can be without leaving the ice.

“Tess, I’ve got you,” he whispers, and she can feel his breath fan across her lips and cheeks. His face is so close to hers she has to flick her eyes back and forth to look into his. They look strikingly green in this light, and she wonders if they’re reflecting hers back at her.

She nods slightly, taking a tiny step forward. Scott shifts back on the ice, giving her space to step through the little doorway in the boards but never quite leaving her space.

She takes a tentative step onto the slick surface and feels his hands squeeze around hers. Despite the fear knotted deep in her abdomen, she’s never felt safer.

He coaxes her farther onto the ice, skating backwards in front of her and cracking jokes to distract her and make her smile. She smiles gratefully at him and he rubs his thumbs in circles over the backs of her hands.

Eventually she feels brave enough to skate on her own, so Scott moves over so they can skate side by side.

He doesn’t let go of her hand, though.

They pass the time just stroking in laps around the rink, talking about everything and nothing. She’s missed the comfortable conversation they’ve always had, and is glad to see it return.

He occasionally takes off to perform a trick or show off, jumping and spinning across the ice. When she asks about his history with figure skating, he shrugs and repeats, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Eventually, her body aches from the activity and Scott tells her the rink will be opening for public skating soon anyway, so they duck off the ice and return to the bench where their stuff waits for them. She eases her sore feet out of the boots, which Scott returns to the rentals counter. She slips back into her tennis shoes, and accepts an outstretched hand from Scott once more.

They walk back to his house in silence, his fingers wrapped around hers.

The comfortable routine they had established does not last long. The day before Christmas Eve, Scott’s brother Danny arrives, presents and children and noise in tow. They pour into the house, doubling the number of people taking up residence there, and Tessa’s peaceful break ends abruptly.

“Tutu!” Danny cries out when he sees her coming down the stairs to investigate the noise. Tessa rolls her eyes at the nickname but pulls him into a hug all the same.

She doesn’t think Danny Moir has ever called her by her real name. When they’d first met, at the Moir’s Canada Day barbeque after her first year at university, Scott had introduced her to immediate refusal.

“Absolutely not,” Danny had said. “Scotty, you just had to go out and find the _only other girl_ in the country with the same name as my wife?” 

Tessa had rolled her eyes at his dramatics then, as well, as Scott’s face flushed and he attempted to stammer out a response.

“No, this is too confusing,” Danny had said definitively. “You’re Tutu, now. Okay, Tutu?”

Tessa had immediately regretted her decision to wear a long, tulle skirt. A year and a half later, the regret still hadn’t faded.

“Hi, Danny,” she says into his shoulder, back in the moment.

“We’ve missed you, Tutu,” Danny said, holding her out in front of him and looking her up and down, much like his mother had done just days prior. “When Scotty didn’t bring you to the barbecue this past summer we thought you must have died and he’d forgotten to tell us.”

Tessa laughs at this, attempting to cover her discomfort at the mention of the previous summer.

Scott cuts in then, wrapping an arm around Tessa’s shoulders and pulling her out of Danny’s grasp.

“Danny, shouldn’t you be making sure your children aren’t jumping out of windows or sticking their hands in the oven?” Scott says, glaring at his older brother, who just laughs and shoves him in response.

“Good to see you too, little brother.” Danny glances between Scott and Tessa quickly before backing away. “But I get it, I’m going. We’ll talk later though.”

The last part is said with a raised eyebrow and significant look to Scott, and Tessa can feel him shrinking slightly from her position tucked into his side. He nods at his older brother, clearly understanding the message that Tessa had missed, and turns to wrap both of his arms around her.

She looks up at him to find him already looking down at her. His eyes are warm, crinkling slightly at the corners, and she can’t help but think about how easy it would be to reach up and kiss him.

“Hi,” she whispers instead.

“Hey,” he whispers back, leaning down to touch his forehead to hers. She fights the urge to close her eyes, not wanting to seem too eager, but sure that he’s going to tilt his head further, pull her closer, brush his lips against her own.

“Scott?”

Before she can find out if he would have made the move, Alma’s voice rings out through the house. Tessa almost jumps out of her skin, does leap out of his arms, and finds her breath coming heavy as she settles six inches away from where she stood moments before.

“Yeah, ma?” Scott calls back, hands still on Tessa’s waist, looking at her with eyes wide and confused.

“Can you come here, please?” Scott retracts his hands from Tessa’s sides and she immediately feels a shiver run down her spine, missing the contact. He gives her one last significant look before turning from the entryway and disappearing into the kitchen.

Tessa doesn’t move for what she thinks might be an hour, turning the moment over in her head. She’s not sure where it may have led had they not been interrupted, but she knows one thing for sure.

That last look held meaning, just for them, had told her they weren’t done here. 

The next two days fly by in a blur of small Moir children, too many sweets, and more conversation than Tessa would like to make in a 48-hour time period.

She doesn’t get much time alone with Scott, but she’s secretly relieved at the fact. They’re floating in a limbo in which his arm around her waist doesn’t feel like crossing a line and she has to suppress a shiver every time he ducks down to whisper in her ear and she thinks he might just take up permanent residence in the spot where her neck meets her shoulder.

She’s scared that if they get the chance to talk about the moment in the entryway, all of that closeness and intimacy will end. They’ll have to have the conversation, talk about what they are together, she’ll have to face the facts that he isn’t as interested or invested as she is.

So for now she’s content to be sandwiched by his aunt and cousin on the couch, half-engaged in a discussion about her studies, mostly watching Scott’s arms as he gesticulates to emphasize a point in a conversation he’s having with his brothers.

It’s Christmas Eve, and the Moir house is just about bursting with people. By nine pm, Tessa is desperate for a moment alone, and sneaks off toward the stairs. She knows that she’ll have to reappear eventually, that they’ll be going to midnight mass so she can’t fall asleep, that they’ll notice if she just disappears, but she creeps up to the second story anyway. She thinks that even twenty minutes of quiet in the guest room she’s claimed would do her some good. 

She ducks into the room at the end of the hall and breathes a sigh of relief. The chatter from downstairs is still audible but muffled, and she relishes in the relative quiet of the little room. She drops down onto the bed, closing her eyes and relaxing back into the pillows.

Her eyes fly open again some indeterminate amount of time later, and she’s disoriented as she looks around the dark room. She climbs out of bed, shucking off the blanket that had been draped over her in confusion (she’s sure it hadn’t been there when she’d fallen asleep), and flicking on the overhead light (which she doesn’t remember turning off).

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, intentionally hadn’t turned off the lights or gotten under the covers, and she’s relieved when she checks her phone and finds only an hour has passed. 

She leaves the room quietly, turning the lights off once more, and heads in the direction of the stairs.

Before she can begin her descent, however, she’s stopped when she runs headfirst into a soft, warm mass. She tries to jump back just as Scott wraps his arms around her waist, holding her against him. She looks up into his face to find him smiling warmly back down at her. 

“Hi,” he says, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face. 

“Hi,” she giggles back breathlessly.

She watches as his eyes flicker back and forth between hers for a moment. 

“Did you have a nice nap?” He asks, still looking between her eyes. She thinks they might drop lower once or twice, but she can’t be sure. 

“How did you…” she trails off as she realizes he must have come looking for her and found her sleeping, been the one to wrap her up in the blanket and shut off the lights. “Yes. Thank you.”

“No problem, T.” His voice catches slightly, and his eyes stop their frantic flicking back and forth to look up instead. His arms tighten around her waist as he takes a deep breath. “Hey, look.”

She follows his gaze and her eyes catch on the small green twig hanging above them.

“Mistletoe,” she whispers, bringing her gaze down to find his eyes trained on her mouth once more.

When he looks back into her eyes, she sees a question buried deep in the warm brown that seemingly looks straight through her. She nods almost imperceptibly, not wanting to move to much and destroy the moment.

His head dips toward her and she closes her eyes softly. His lips brush against hers, soft and warm. His arms are wrapped so tightly around her waist she thinks she shouldn’t be able to breathe. She lifts a hand up to comb through the short curls at the base of his neck, the other gripping his bicep as though he’d disappear should she let go.

He sighs against her, lips opening slightly to pull her deeper into him. She goes willingly, wanting to dissolve herself and become a part of him, cease existing if it meant she could be this close to him forever.

Eventually he pulls back slightly, pressing his forehead to hers and smiling widely down at her.

“Hi,” he whispers once more, causing her to dissolve into giggles.

“Hi,” she whispers back.

“We should head back down.” Her stomach drops slightly at the suggestion, thoughts of kissing him again, holding him against her, leading him into one of the rooms down the hall falling with it. But his grasp around her waist doesn’t loosen as he directs her down the stairs, so she goes willingly, content just to remain in his arms.

The next few days pass in a continuing flurry, the stream of people filing through the house never ceasing, the noise level rarely quieting, the energy level constantly rising. Tessa meets so many people she’s sure she’ll never remember all their names or faces.

She delights in the stories of Scott throughout his childhood, makes sure to file those away deep in her memory.

By New Year’s Eve, she’s exhausted. Scott tells her about the party his family traditionally attends at a family friend’s house, and immediately tells her they don’t have to go when he sees the look that crosses her face at the thought of hours more of socializing with people she’ll likely never meet again.

“Or, we can stay here and eat pizza and drink champagne and watch the ball drop from the comfort of the couch?” He offers, and she knows her face lights up by the smile that spreads on Scott’s.

“That sounds amazing.” She says across the table where they’re eating breakfast.

“Yeah?” He asks, and she nods in confirmation. “It’s a date, then.”

She tries not to think too hard on those words. 

That evening she finds herself, as promised, curled up on the couch in the Moir living room, greasy pizza box thrown open on the coffee table in front of her, tucked into Scott’s side. When Harry Met Sally is playing on the TV and she’s trying to pay attention, but she finds herself distracted by the languid circles Scott is tracing against her side.

She’s never been more content.

The movie ends at 11:50 just as she’d planned, and she changes the channel to the ball drop. Scott gets up to pour them glasses of champagne, and Tessa shivers at the loss of contact.

They move silently through the night, and Tessa swears the anticipation in the room is tangible.

Scott returns to the couch, handing her a flute of bubbling liquid and pulling her back into his side. The countdown begins on the TV.

_10… 9… 8…_

Tessa shifts to look at him.

_7… 6… 5…_

Neither says a word.

_4… 3… 2…_

Scott pulls her back into him.

_1! Happy New Year!_

And then their lips are connected, and he’s panting against her mouth. The champagne is forgotten, him having managed to set his flute down at some point and her holding her arm out awkwardly as to not spill.

She folds herself into him, loses herself to his lips, forgets everything around her.

She hopes she never has to remember again.

++

It’s a Saturday in March when Tessa is pulled out of an afternoon nap by her phone ringing. She’s tempted to ignore it, to roll over and fall back asleep, but she resists the urge and accepts the call without even a glance at the caller ID.

“Hello?” Her voice is crackly and betrays her half-asleep state, but she can’t find the energy to care.

“Tess?” It’s Scott, and she immediately perks up. “Did I wake you up? Are you okay?”

“Yep!” She cringes at the sudden chipper tone her voice takes. “I mean, yeah. I was just taking a nap.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” she shakes her head even though she knows he can’t see her. “What’s up?”

“I, well. I wanted to talk to you about something.” She sucks in a breath at his words and hopes he doesn’t hear.

“Okay, shoot.”

“It’s about Hannah.” He says it gingerly, like he’s trying to minimize the impact his words will have on her.

“Who?” He needn’t have worried because she genuinely has no idea who he’s talking about.

“Hannah?” When she doesn’t respond in recognition, he continues, “the, uh, the girl I’ve been seeing.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know her name,” Tessa explains. “I’ve never met her.”

“Oh.”

“So you’re back together, then?” Tessa suddenly wants this conversation to be over with as quickly as possible.

“Yeah,” he sighs out. “I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

Tessa does a double take at his words.

“If that’s okay with me?” She asks. “Why does it matter if I’m okay with it?”

“I – I don’t know.” Scott sounds caught off guard, as though he hadn’t expected her to question him. “I just thought, you know, we have a history or something. I thought I should let you know.”

“Scott,” she laughs out, “I don’t give a damn who you’re dating or not dating. You do you, buddy.”

“Oh, okay.” She thinks there’s a hint of disappointment in his voice, but she cuts that hopeful thought off before it can even begin to manifest. “I guess that’s it, then.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Tess.”

“Bye, Scott.” 

She hangs up the phone and drops back into her bed. At some point in the call, she can’t remember when exactly, she’d stood up and started pacing. She plugs her phone in and sets it on her nightstand.

She glares at it, as though it was the perpetrator of the conversation now replaying endlessly in her mind.

It’s not that she hadn’t been expecting it. Despite their trip to Ilderton over the break, the looks and the touches and the kisses they’d shared over the course of those two weeks, the moment Scott dropped her off at her apartment everything had gone back to the way it was before the break. He had waved her goodbye from his truck, not getting out to help her grab her stuff from the back, and driven off before she’d even unlocked the door.

She hadn’t seen him much since.

She thinks about what she’d said to him. That she didn’t care if, or who, he was dating. She thinks about how it had sounded coming out of her mouth, distant and detached, as though it wasn’t her who had said it at all.

Tessa values honesty above most other things, but in that moment she couldn’t hold herself to her own standards.

It had been a lie.

++

The weekend before finals week, Tessa finds herself at Scott’s place.

It’s weird; she’s barely been there the entire year. They’ve changed all the furniture – replacing the pieces she’d taken with her to her new apartment, which had been nearly everything – and now worn wood and dark blues fill the space that had once been occupied by stainless steel and crisp whites. It looks much more like a bachelor pad now, all mismatched décor and a thin layer of grime covering every surface.

Despite it all, she likes it. It feels right for a space occupied by three twenty something college boys. And she does have to admit the new navy couch is incredibly comfortable, even if she’s wary of the fact that they refuse to tell her where it was purchased.

She’s brought out of her admiration for the new stylings when Scott places a glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her and drops down next to her.

She’s even more alarmed when he doesn’t settle, and instead flops across the entire sofa, placing his head in her lap. He reaches for her hand and threads it through his hair.

She takes a moment to let him change his mind, but when he looks at her insistently, she starts to comb her fingers through his hair. His eyes slip shut as her fingers scrape gently across his scalp.

“Everything okay down there?” She asks, cocking her head to look directly in his eyes. He gives a shrug, opening one eye to look back at her as if he could sense every one of her movements.

“Hannah and I are done.” He closes his eyes once more, but this time they squeeze shut and she wonders if he’s holding back tears.

“Oh.” She says dumbly. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, nothing to be sorry about.” He shrugs again, and she feels his shoulder blades shift against her thigh. “I knew it was coming.”

“Oh.” She says again. “Sorry.”

He just gives her a look, and she hates herself for her inability to shut up. She reaches for the wine, leaning over him in his position in her lap.

She shivers when his breath hits a strip of exposed skin of her stomach.

She leans back, taking a large sip from the glass. She’s not sure she’ll be able to make it through this conversation entirely sober. She’d not been doing to great a job thus far.

“Are you okay?” She asks finally. He lets out a deep sigh.

“I will be.” He says, nodding as best he can without jostling her beneath him. “I’m kind of drunk, I think.”

This doesn’t surprise her, if his behavior hadn’t tipped her off, the smell radiating off him surely would have. She takes another long sip of wine, wanting to join him in inebriation.

“Alcohol, the best band aid for a breakup.” She nods wisely, preening when her words elicit a giggle.

“Indeed,” he says, turning his head slightly to look at her. She watches as he’s distracted, eyes drawn to the sliver of skin revealed between her jeans and blouse, heart rate rising as she watches him raise a hand toward the hem.

He moves slowly, aware enough of his situation to let her protest, giving her an out, waiting for her to stop him. She doesn’t, and he tugs the hem of her shirt upward, revealing her bellybutton. The piece of metal there glints in the soft light of the living room.

“I didn’t know you had this.” His fingers are tracing the bar now and goosebumps rise on her skin as his fingers brush against her stomach.

“I got it last summer,” she tells him. He hums in response.

And then he turns his head further, and his lips are on the sensitive flesh of her stomach. He wraps his lips gently around the jewelry and Tessa bites back a moan.

Suddenly, Scott is sitting up, pulling Tessa into his lap. His mouth is on hers before she can register what has just happened, her mind processing slowly as the alcohol settles deep in her stomach. Eventually she kisses him back, parting her lips and letting his tongue brush against hers.

She lets him set the pace, clinging to him as he shifts off the couch, following him willingly into his bedroom.

She doesn’t get the chance to look around, notice what has changed since she lived here, before she’s falling into bed underneath him.

Later, when she’s breaking through the haze of sex and alcohol, she’ll realize nothing has changed. As she gathers her clothes and dresses slowly, she’ll take stock of the pictures of her and Scott that still line the dresser, make a not of the lack of a certain perky blonde he’d been wrapped up in on and off for the past year. She’ll pretend she didn’t notice until she convinces herself.

She’ll ignore the traces of herself in every crevice of the room, pull on her shoes and tuck the blankets around Scott’s sleeping body and turn the lights out before she escapes into the night.

She can’t help but press a kiss to his forehead before she leaves though, and her heart breaks when he mumbles in his sleep.

“Night, T.”

“Good night, Scott.”

And then she’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has to get worse before it gets better?
> 
> I'm sorry. I hate myself too.


	4. senior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out not to be too big of a deal that they’re watching a movie that wouldn’t be her first choice, as she falls asleep within the first thirty minutes. Her long day caught up to her, the hours spent in the lab and her meeting about her thesis wearing her down. Sitting there in the dark, soaking in Scott’s body heat, she drops into the most pleasant, peaceful sleep she’s had in a while.
> 
> He wakes her up when the movie ends, whispering her name against her ear, and if she doesn’t open her eyes she can almost convince herself that it’s just them cuddled up on the couch, that this is the end of a date, that he’s going to carry her to her room and kiss her good night.
> 
> Eventually she does open her eyes, though, watches Hannah climb out of Scott’s arms and pull him up and across the living room and through the doorway that leads to their room, the single bedroom they share, and Tessa is alone in the living room, rubbing sleep and wishful thinking out of her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've reached the end! Thank you all for sticking around, I'm so grateful for the reception this fic has received!!
> 
> Quick warning that (spoiler alert) this chapter does include cheating. Also I've not written a psych thesis so I don't really know what goes into it so hopefully my description isn't too out there!
> 
> With that said, please enjoy the fourth and final chapter!

Tessa isn’t all too surprised when her housing arrangements fall apart in the week leading up to the beginning of the first semester of her final year of university.

After getting back together at some point the previous year, Kaitlyn and Andrew had decided to move back in together. Meagan had graduated, and Kaetlyn was moving in with some other juniors. By August their lease had ended and Tessa found herself standing alone in a mostly empty apartment that no longer belonged to her.

With nowhere else to turn, she'd found herself on the doorstep of her old house, being welcomed by Patrick and Liz and Scott and Hannah.

And If she’d regretted living with Scott and Chiddy before, it was nothing like living with Scott and Chiddy and their live in girlfriends.

Tessa liked Liz. She was quiet and kind and perfectly matched to Patrick. They would get coffee together as they walked to class, make polite conversation when their paths crossed, and she could make a mean double chocolate chip cookie.

Hannah, on the other hand, was less bearable.

Maybe it was due to Tessa’s close relationship with Scott, or Hannah's volatile relationship with Scott, or the fact that they had never been properly introduced. Maybe Hannah could detect the lingering feelings Tessa harbored for Scott. Maybe Hannah was just preppy and bubbly and had a bright, girlish giggle that, in Tessa’s opinion, sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

No matter what it was, Tessa and Hannah were not friends.

Which naturally made things awkward.

Because Scott was trying with Tessa. He made it clear that he wanted to be friends, best friends, even, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice their relationship to be with Hannah. He also made it clear he wasn’t going to sacrifice his relationship with Hannah to be friends with Tessa, but she’d never ask him to. 

She suspects Hannah would, though. If only she weren’t so damn nice all the time.

But instead of talking about the fucked up situation they're in, they create a tentative, complicated triangle of love for Scott and mutual distaste and trying to balance a fragile web of relationships.

Scott, trying to keep the peace (and maybe trying to force Hannah and Tessa to be friends), insists on cooking for them both multiple nights per week. Tessa notices that, despite being invited, Chiddy and Liz make themselves suspiciously scarce on nights when Scott, Hannah, and Tessa are all home.

A month into the semester Tessa trudges through the door just as Patrick and Liz are making their exit, receiving a quick hug and a kiss brushed against her cheek as they hurry out of the house, and Tessa suppresses a groan. Their rush can only mean one thing, and that thing is a so-called “family dinner.”

Scott had thought he was so clever when he came up with that one. Tessa had laughed and pretended it didn’t kill her a little on the inside.

“Hey, Virtch!” He calls out from the kitchen as she crosses through the living room. She’d noticed he’d become fond of the old nickname since she’d moved back in. She wonders if it’s another way of holding her at an arm’s distance when Hannah is around.

“What’cha making?” She asks, dropping her bag on the couch and settling herself at a barstool positioned along the kitchen island.

“Lemon herb chicken and baked veggies,” he announces proudly, gesturing toward the array of half-chopped vegetables on the counter in front of him. She thinks his chest puffs up a bit as he says it.

“Mm, sounds good.”

“Wine?” He asks, already moving to grab a glass from the cabinet. 

“In a bit.” She moves to get off the stool. “Let me go change first.”

She heads off to her room, putting her bag in its spot next to her desk, unpacking her books and lining them neatly on her bookshelf. She changes out of the jeans and sweater she’d been wearing all day, swapping them for a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.

Once comfortable, she returns to the kitchen, eager for more easy conversation with Scott and a large glass of wine before she has to make nice with Hannah.

She’s not so lucky, though, as she reenters the kitchen to find Scott standing over the stove, tiny blonde parasite positioned behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. She huffs out a sigh.

“Hi, Hannah.”

“Oh, Tess! Hi,” Tessa wants to cringe at the girl’s bubbly greeting. “I didn’t know you were home!” 

“Yep, just got back a few minutes ago.” Tessa moves to pour herself a glass of wine, seeing as Scott is occupied now.

“How was your day, T?” Scott asks as he moves back to the island to finish preparing the vegetables. “You had that meeting with your thesis advisor, right?”

Tessa nods, settling herself on a barstool once again and taking a long drag from her glass. “Yeah, it was okay. I’m worried about my data, but she seemed to think it would be okay. I have about forty more meetings with her and the rest of the department before my oral defense, though.”

The tension in her chest lightens slightly as Scott laughs, and she focuses on the sound instead of the blonde ponytail bobbing over his shoulder.

They hang out in the kitchen while Scott finishes making dinner, Hannah pitching in when he asks for help. Tessa would volunteer, but she can feel the vibes radiating off of Hannah, reading _this is my territory. Do not overstep._

So Tessa sits at the island, eventually retrieving her laptop so she can sort through her email and pretend to work. If she maintains a façade of busyness it’s less awkward to linger while her best friend and his girlfriend cook what should be a romantic meal for two, right?

So she rearranges some graphs in her thesis document, watching Scott when his back is turned, and downs two glasses of wine while dinner is cooking. She smiles gratefully when he offers more wine silently, his eyes telling her _“I’m sorry.”_ She hopes he can read the _“don’t worry about it”_ she says with her own eyes in response. He seems to get it, smiling softly at her as he tops off her glass before turning back to the vegetables he’s just pulled from the oven.

Hannah steams in the corner, but Tessa just goes back to her work.

Dinner passes in much the same manner, surface level discussion between the three of them, Hannah making not so subtle contact with Scott where she knows Tessa will see, Tessa and Scott communicating through glances and smiles Tessa knows Hannah would kill to understand.

It’s small, but it feels like a win.

When the plates have been all but licked clean and they’re sitting in comfortable silence, Tessa and Hannah almost racing each other to finish the last of their glasses of wine (Tessa’s on her fourth. She hasn’t been counting Hannah’s, but she’d guess she’s about even), Scott pushes away from the table and looks between the two of them.

“Well, ladies. What do we think about a movie?” He phrases it as a question, and Tessa knows she has an out if she wants it, but she also knows they have limited time to spend together now, and this will be one of a few opportunities this week.

“I’m in, but let me do the dishes first, eh?” She starts scooping up all of the plates and cutlery in front of them, piling them up and heading back into kitchen.

“Ah, Tess, you don’t have to do that,” he starts to argue, but she shoots him a look over her shoulder.

“You cooked, I clean.” She says, leaving no room to argue. “That’s our deal, right, Moir?”

He sighs and shakes his head but gives in. She starts in on the dishes, piling plates into the dishwasher and setting the pan he had used to soak so she can scrub it clean. Out of the corner of her eye she sees him take Hannah’s hand and lead her into the living room, likely to get comfortable and pick a movie.

She’s grateful the sink faces the back of the house, rather than inward, where it would provide a view over the island into the living room where she’s sure she’d be able to see Scott and Hannah cuddling up on the faded blue couch.

She shakes the image from her mind and scrubs the residue away from the bottom of the pan harder. The faster she gets this done, the faster she can get this night over with.

When the dishes are so clean they sparkle and the dishwasher has been set to run, she rounds the island to join them on the sofa.

Her suspicions are confirmed as she finds Hannah sandwiched between one arm of the couch and Scott, curled into his side, one of his arms wrapped around her protectively.

She sits in the far corner, her actions alerting Scott to her presence. He looks over at her, dramatic offense gracing his features, and opens his other arm up wide, gesturing for her to move over and sit against his other side. 

The image that flits through her mind, Scott with his girlfriend curled up on one side, female best friend – who might be harboring secret feelings toward him – tucked into the other, has her suppressing a cringe, but she goes anyway.

“The Notebook okay?” Scott asks her when she settles against him. She nods, but has to roll her eyes at Scott’s affinity for romantic movies.

It turns out not to be too big of a deal that they’re watching a movie that wouldn’t be her first choice, as she falls asleep within the first thirty minutes. Her long day catching up to her, the hours spent in the lab and her meeting about her thesis wearing her down. Sitting there in the dark, soaking in Scott’s body heat, she drops into the most pleasant, peaceful sleep she’s had in a while.

He wakes her up when the movie ends, whispering her name against her ear, and if she doesn’t open her eyes she can almost convince herself that it’s just them cuddled up on the couch, that this is the end of a date, that he’s going to carry her to her room and kiss her good night.

Eventually she does open her eyes, though, watches Hannah climb out of Scott’s arms and pull him up and across the living room and through the doorway that leads to their room, the single bedroom they _share_ , and Tessa is alone in the living room, rubbing sleep and wishful thinking out of her eyes.

++

It’s October when Scott comes home to find Tessa sitting at the kitchen table, head in hands, staring at a line of data.

“Should have studied math, eh Virtch?” He teases her, dropping into the chair next to her. She barely glances up from her laptop to glare at him.

“And give up my computer doing all my computations for memorizing equations and taking exams?” She says drily, returning to attempting to fit her data into a graph with some kind of meaning. “I’ll take hours agonizing over data any day, thanks.”

She’d been going over this particular data set for hours, trying to make the trials fit, messing with her numbers, but everything seems to have lost all semblance of meaning somewhere along the way. Her eyes flicker over the rows of trials and she can feel herself spiraling.

“Hey, hey, T, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay.” And of course, Scott can read her mind, can tell exactly what is running through her mind as she thinks about the oral she’ll be giving in too few months where she’ll have to assert that her research is meaningful even though right now it seems it is absolutely not. 

Scott picks up on all of this, and before she can say a word, he’s got a glass of wine in front of her and a hand rubbing circles on her back. She takes the wine gratefully and leans into his touch like it’s the only thing keeping her from crumbling inward on herself.

“Thank you, Scott.” She says, looking at him through her lashes. His eyes are wide and warm and she feels the anxiety draining from her the longer she sits there in his presence.

“Of course, Tess.” He says earnestly. “You’re gonna rock this.”

She laughs sardonically at that, shaking her head. “I don’t know about that…” 

“I’m serious, T. You’re the smartest person I know. If anyone can do this, it’s you. You’re going to kill it.”

When he’s done, she launches herself into his arms. All thoughts of boundaries and girlfriends melt away as she positions herself in his lap, arms tight around his neck. He wraps her up immediately, without a trace of hesitation. He tucks his face into her neck and she threads a hand into his hair.

She doesn’t know how long they hold each other, but eventually guilt sets in and she starts to pull away.

He doesn’t let her get far, though, before his mouth crushes against hers and oh, they’re making out at the kitchen table.

 _The kitchen table in the house that she and Scott and Scott’s girlfriend share,_ a voice in the back of her mind reminds her. But then his tongue is in her mouth and she drowns the voice out with a moan.

Every worry that Tessa has ever had is swept away has Scott lifts her into his arms, carries her into her room, and drops her into bed. 

There’s a moment, when he’s looming over her, his pants around his knees and her shirt tossed across the room somewhere, when he pauses. She looks up at him, reading the silent question in his blown out eyes. He’s asking her if she’s okay, if he should continue, if she wants this.

She surges forward to catch him in a kiss once more.

She’s never wanted anything more.

++

Scott doesn’t break up with Hannah.

Scott had sex with Tessa, but he doesn’t break up with Hannah.

Scott had _initiated_ sex with Tessa, but he doesn’t break up with Hannah.

Tessa doesn’t say anything, and Scott doesn’t break up with Hannah.

Two weeks later, it happens again. Tessa doesn’t know where Hannah is, but Scott comes home in a whirlwind, finds Tessa reading on the couch, and sweeps her up into his arms and carries her into her bedroom. She wonders briefly, while they bask in the afterglow of really fucking good sex, if this means he’d broken up with her, if he’d come home to tell her he’s all hers now. But then Scott climbs out of her bed, puts back on his clothes, kisses her on the forehead, and goes to make dinner.

Hannah comes home an hour later, and Tessa watches as she kisses Scott in greeting. She tries not to think about where that mouth had been just hours earlier. A horrible part of her wonders if he still tastes like her.

Scott still doesn’t break up with Hannah.

They fall into a cycle. Weeks go by, full of typical awkward dinners and movie nights with one of Scott’s arms wrapped around Hannah’s waist and the other sitting on Tessa’s knee. And then Scott will come home one day and fuck Tessa into oblivion, only to turn around and pretend it never happened, and he still doesn’t break up with Hannah.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

There are days when Tessa wonders if Hannah knows. There are days when she’s sure Hannah doesn’t know, and she thinks about how much she hates being Scott’s dirty little secret. There are days when Scott’s sweat on her skin makes her feel like the worst kind of dirty, and no amount of showering and vanilla scented body wash will carry away her sins.

She doesn’t stop it, though. She falls into bed with him every time, a willing participant, just as much an adulterer as the man panting above and below and around her.

In those moments, his mouth sweet on her skin and his hands burning like flame, she can’t find it in herself to stop him.

Finals are looming when she looks across the table she’s sharing with Kaitlyn in the library and breaks.

“I’m fucking Scott,” she confesses without preamble. Kaitlyn’s head snaps up from the reading spread out in front of her.

“You’ve been what?” She cries out. Tessa shushes her, looking around apologetically.

“We’ve been sleeping together.” Tessa confirms as she watches her friend’s eyes grow wider.

“For how long?” Kaitlyn asks, adopting a hushed tone. “When did he break up with Hannah?”

“Like six weeks. Maybe two months.” Tessa looks down at her laptop screen, unable to meet Kaitlyn’s eyes as she says the next part, “He hasn’t.”

“He hasn’t what?” Kaitlyn trails off and Tessa can hear the realization dawn on the other girl. “Oh, Tess. You haven’t been…”

“I know. I’m a terrible person.”

“No, sweetie. No.” Kaitlyn takes Tessa’s face into her hands pulling her head up to meet her eyes once more. “You’ve made a mistake. But it was a team effort, and it does not make you a terrible person.”

“It wasn't a mistake. I could’ve stopped.” Tessa says. “I didn’t want to. I don’t think he’s planning on breaking up with her any time soon, he’s taking her home for Christmas, but then every other day he comes into my room and then we’re fucking and I don’t know what to do.”

“God, you need to get out of that house.” Kaitlyn shakes her head, as though it should be obvious. “I knew this was a bad idea from the start. You and Scott have been half in love with each other since freshman year, I don’t know how either of you thought this whole situation would work out.”

“I have not been in love with him since freshman year!” Tessa cries out in protest. Kaitlyn just raises her eyebrows.

“Sure you haven’t.” Kaitlyn says, and Tessa shrinks slightly. “Either way, you and Scott need distance. Come stay with me and Andrew until after finals. You and Scott under the same house will only lead to more sex, clearly. You both need some time away from each other to sort your shit out.”

Tessa nods slowly. “Thanks, Kait.”

“Of course, Tess.”

The next morning, after she knows Scott has left for class, Tessa packs up her stuff in a duffle bag and flees to Kaitlyn and Andrew’s.

++

It’s a relief when finals end and Scott and Hannah head to Ilderton for the break. She knows they’ve left because Hannah documents the entire two-hour drive on her Snapchat story, which makes Tessa roll her eyes in annoyance.

When she’s sure that they’re far from Toronto, Tessa moves herself back into her house. She’d been grateful to stay with Kaitlyn, but the pull out couch in their living room really can’t compare to her own queen bed in the privacy of her own bedroom. And she misses the extent of her wardrobe.

She passes the break in a whirlwind of productivity. She thinks she’s finally making progress on her thesis, her data finally slotting into place, and she spends hours on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate, writing up a flurry.

After living with at least two other people for the past several years, the silent house is disorienting. She finds herself tiptoeing around, careful not to make a sound, even in the middle of the day. Her mom comes down for the few days surrounding Christmas, and she’s grateful for the life she brings to the house.

Her three-week break is an altogether quiet affair. Patrick and Liz return just after New Years, and Tessa enjoys the opportunity to spend time with the two of them without the pressure of the presence of Scott and Hannah. They watch action movies and eat pizza and laugh a lot and Tessa has fun hanging out with her friends in a way she thinks she hasn’t been able to since sophomore year. 

All good things must come to an end, though, and Tessa spends the last few days of her break packing up a bag to take to Kaitlyn’s once more. She’s not sure what she’ll do in terms of housing for the rest of the semester. She has a standing invitation to Kaitlyn and Andrew’s couch, but she can’t imagine crashing there for five more months. She figures she’ll put an ad out eventually.

She can imagine it now, the little square in the corner of a newspaper, reading: _Second semester Toronto senior desperately seeking housing for spring! Trying to escape love triangle with current housemates, best friend and best friend’s girlfriend. Couples need not apply._

Yeah, that’ll go over well.

It’s Saturday, and Tessa just wants to enjoy one last evening in this house which has brought her both joy and agony over the last three years. She’s sitting down to a dinner of left over Italian from the other night with Chiddy and Liz when the front door bursts open.

It’s Scott, bundled up against the cold, duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He spots her from her position on the couch and his eyes go wide.

“Tessa! I didn’t think…” He trails off, shifting nervously from his position in the doorway. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

“I do live here, Scott,” she says curtly. “But I was actually just leaving. So it’s all yours again.”

His jaw goes slack as she rises from the couch, moving to throw away the take out container she hadn’t bothered to remove her dinner from.

She crosses the house quickly, scoops up her stuff, and joins him in the entryway to the house.

“Wait – what?” Scott looks her up and down, wrapped up in her thick coat, her own duffle bag situated neatly at her side. “Where are you going?”

“Kaitlyn and Andrew’s.” Tessa explains, feeling her eyebrows creep upward. She watches as he works his jaw, knowing he’s trying to figure out what to say. 

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?” She parrots back at him. She thinks her eyebrows must be in her hairline now.

“Don’t go. Stay here.” She wants to scoff as he begs. She wouldn’t be surprised if he dropped to his knees any second now.

“I’m sorry, Scott.” She says, reaching up to touch his arm briefly. “But I can’t be here anymore.” 

She turns and leaves without letting him say another word.

Unfortunately, in her haste to get out of the house, she’d forgotten some of her books. After the first day of classes, she’s forced to return to the house to pick them up so she can do her readings for the next day of class.

She lets herself into the house and prays Scott’s not home.

The house is quiet, and she lets out a sigh of relief. She crosses the house briskly, not wanting to linger and risk running into him. Or Hannah, for that matter. She still doesn’t know if Hannah knows what is going on. Or _was_ going on, Tessa thinks. 

The house feels bigger somehow, emptier. She doesn’t think much of it, assuming it’s just the lack of her own stuff that’s making the space feel unfamiliar. She shakes herself out of it, collecting her books from her room, before making to leave.

She’s stopped on her way out, though, by Scott leaving his room. He doesn’t see her at first, his eyes trained on his phone as he moves directly toward the spot where Tessa is frozen in place.

He glances up when she lets out a squeak seconds before he would have run directly into her.

“Oh!” He calls out in surprise, jumping backward slightly. “Uh. Hi.”

“Hi.” She says back. He’s looking at her like he’s not sure she’s actually real. “I forgot my books.” 

He nods at her explanation. “I was actually, um. I was just going to text you.”

She’s surprised at this. He doesn’t like texting, and with the way things had been going for the past month, she hadn’t expected him to be the one to reach out.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says. “The day I got home, actually. But then you were all weird, and you left, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you, and things have been so weird recently, and I don’t know what to do about it, and can we please sit down?”

He looks between her and the couch, and she realizes they haven’t moved, and they’re just standing slightly too close together in the space between the kitchen and the living room. Tessa nods and takes a seat gingerly on the edge of the couch.

“Okay. So first of all, I think you should move back in.” Scott starts. Tessa opens her mouth to protest, but Scott doesn’t give her the opportunity. “You don’t have to, obviously. If you think it’s the right thing to do. But I miss you, T. I don’t like not living with you.”

“That’s very sweet, Scott, but we can’t carry on the way we were last semester.” Tessa explains gently. “It wasn’t fair to Hannah, and it wasn’t fair to me. I don’t want to be the other woman, Scott.”

He flushes at her words. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I was kind of a shitty boyfriend last semester, huh?” Tessa laughs drily at the royal understatement. “But you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“I don’t know if you can say that, Scott. I know we didn’t talk about it last semester, but I wanted to stop you. But I couldn’t. And that was the worst part.”

“God, T, I never meant to pressure you-“ Guilt fills Scott’s face and Tessa moves to comfort him quickly. 

“ _No_ , Scott, you didn’t. I just had so much guilt over what we were doing to Hannah, and I wanted to tell you that we had to stop, but I liked it so much that I couldn’t find it in me to stop you.” She explains, and she thinks she sees relief take hold of his features.

“Oh.” He says looking down at where their hands are intertwined. She doesn’t remember that happening, but she squeezes his in hers all the same. “But that’s what I mean, Tess. Hannah and I broke up.”

It takes her a moment to process what he’s saying. They’d broken up. He wasn’t dating her anymore. They weren’t on a break, like he’d told her just over a year ago to get Tessa to go home with him for Christmas. No, they were broken up. She fights the smile that threatens to cross her features.

“Oh,” she says.

“Yeah," he says. "I'm so sorry, T. This last semester, hell, this last year, I hate who I was. I'm sorry I fucked everything up so bad."

"Thank you, Scott." She's not ready to say it's okay, yet. Because it's not okay, not yet. But maybe they can get there. "I'm sorry, too."

"So you'll move back in? And I don’t, like – you don’t, we don’t –“ he stutters out, and she wants to laugh. “We don’t have to be anything. If you don’t want to.”

“Can we start with me just moving back in?” She asks. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be more with him. In fact, it’s all she’s thought about for months. Maybe years, if she’s honest.

But she hesitates when she thinks about the past year and a half. The volatility of their relationship, and his on again, off again relationship with Hannah, scares her. She doesn’t want to fall into bed with him, only to end up losing him forever.

She’s relieved when that big, bright smile cracks open across his face and he moves to wrap his arms around her. “Of course, T. Welcome home.”

++

It doesn’t take long for her to let go of her concerns and climb back into bed with him.

He can read her like a book. When she comes home from the lab and all she wants is a massage, his hands are on her shoulders the moment she crosses the threshold. When he comes home from hockey practices and his shirt is stained with sweat, she doesn’t utter a word before it’s flung across the room. And when she’s up at three in the morning, having spent hours tossing and turning, he emerges from his room to settle her in the best way. 

He’s always gone when she wakes up in the morning, and she’s glad.

They don’t talk about it. He cooks her dinner nearly every night of the week. They sit at the kitchen table together, him with two textbooks spread out in front of him, her typing away furiously on her laptop. They save movies and episodes of TV shows so they can watch them together, his head in her lap, her fingers carding through his hair. She takes up the space Hannah had just abandoned, but they don’t talk about it.

Scott is a shameless flirt. She’s always known this about him, found it infuriating when they were first years, flushed at every tease when they were sophomores, longed for it to be directed at her again throughout junior year. Now, she gives as good as she gets, ruffling his hair and arching one eyebrow and sending him dramatic winks across the dinner table. They’re more physical than ever before, constantly touching in every context. They hold hands as they walk across campus, they start and end every interaction with an intense hug, his hand slips under her shirt to rub at her side while they talk. He makes a home in the crook of her neck. She thinks they touch more than he ever did with Hannah, but they don’t talk about it.

They’re not exclusive, she doesn’t think. She’s not sure, though. Because they haven’t talked about it. Until they do.

It’s a Wednesday night and Scott has made her dinner, again. This time it’s handmade tortellini and she’s not sure when he had the time to learn and practice and perfect the recipe, but the butter sauce melts on her tongue and she almost moans around every other bite. His face lights up as he observes her enjoyment of the meal. 

“Good?” He asks her as she lets out a third embarrassing groan over the food.

“Incredible, Scott.” She opens her eyes from where they had fallen shut in pleasure, and his eyes are wide and dark, looking so intently at her she’s sure he can see straight through her. The quiet night around them, the amazing meal, and the look in her eyes has warmth building up inside of her, and she thinks it might overflow. “You really don’t have to do this every night.”

“I want to,” he’s quick to assure her, and the warm bubble in her chest grows a little bit bigger.

She wonders if, under other circumstances, this would be a date. He’d cooked for her, pulled out her chair for her, lit candles in the middle of the table. Their feet are intertwined under the table, and he has a look on his face that she’s sure has only ever been directed at her. She flushes under his intense gaze, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear nervously.

Yeah, this could definitely be described as a date.

The night ends with three episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine they had been saving up and triple chocolate ice cream right out of the tub. She curls into his side, presses her cold toes against his bare calf, feels him shiver and laugh underneath her. They talk all through the commercial breaks, attention directed only at the other to the point of missing the end of the break and forgetting to watch the show altogether. They have to rewind to figure out what they missed on more than one occasion.

By eleven, she wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep for six years. But before she can get up off the couch, he turns her in his arms and holds her face so she has no choice but to look him in the eyes.

“Tess,” he whispers. She can feel his breath on her face. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She nods, motioning for him to continue.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you, and you don’t have to do anything differently.” He avoids her gaze, eyes darting around nervously, and she searches his face with her own. She has no idea what he’s trying to tell her, and his nerves are piquing hers. “I just wanted you to know that I’m not seeing anyone right now. Anyone else, that is. I don’t _want_ to see anyone else.”

She lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, but that had been locked in her chest since he told her he had broken up with Hannah at the beginning of the semester.

He’s not seeing anyone else. He doesn’t want anyone else.

He’s seeing her. He wants her.

He _only_ wants her.

She falls against him, nodding and squeezing her eyes shut and refusing to cry. He holds her against his chest, lets her lead him to her room, climbs into bed behind her, and holds her, and holds her, and holds her.

When she wakes up in the morning, his arms are still wrapped around her, and she hopes he never lets go.

++

Tessa swears she blinks and her final semester of her undergrad ends. She finishes her orals and her thesis gets approved. Lectures go by in fast forward, the hours in the lab pass in a blur, nights spent studying and out with her friends and curled up on the couch with Scott bleed together in her memory.

Before she can register that the days are flying past, before she can bask in all of her lasts, before she can cherish the moments that she’ll never get back, they’re gone.

One day she’s drowning in homework and preparing for finals and wondering if she’ll ever finish her damn thesis and the next she’s pulling on the new white dress she’d picked out, her gown laid out across her bed. Her mom and sister are in the living room, talking to Scott’s parents.

And Scott is in his own room, across the house, presumably pulling on the neat blue button down and slacks Tessa had helped him pick out in his own room (because they still haven’t talked about what they are to each other, beyond being exclusive, and they’ve kept their own individual rooms even though they end up in the same bed every night anyway) and freaking out far less than she is right now.

She wishes he were here with her now, even just his presence as he stood on the other side of the room and they dressed in silence would calm the flurry of butterflies building up in her stomach right now.

Because Tessa Virtue has known exactly what her life would look like in college since she was ten years old and her older brother came home and told her all about it. She dreamed about her dorm room, thought about her course schedules, had planned her entire life for four years more than eight years in advance.

But despite all of her plans, none of it had turned out the way she’d dreamt up.

She had made incredible friends and studied interesting topics and gotten far drunker than ten or thirteen or even seventeen year old Tessa would dare to imagine. She’d failed courses, something that would mortify her high school self, even though she’s accepted it as just a part of the process, now.

And none of her daydreams could have ever come up with Scott.

So she’s pretty grateful that her childhood plans hadn’t come to fruition.

But she’s also scared shitless.

Because in all of her planning and dreaming and anticipating, it had always ended with her crossing the stage at the end of the four years, accepting a diploma and shaking some faceless hands and doing a dorky little curtsy while her family whooped and hollered from the audience.

And then the scene fades to black.

She’d never really thought about what she would do after. When the cap comes off and she hangs up her gown and her diploma is framed and starting to collect dust. She has a degree. Now what?

She’s brought out of her spiraling panic by a sharp knock on the door. She can tell it’s either her mom or Jordan by the succession of short, percussive raps. She pulls the zipper on her dress the rest of the way up, from where it had been sitting halfway up her back while she gave into her anxiety about the rest of her life, and pulls open her bedroom door.

Her mom beams at her when she reveals herself.

“You look radiant, sweetie.”

“Thanks, mom.” Tessa accepts a short hug from the woman in front of her before turning back into her room.

“It’s about time to head out, are you ready?” Her mom asks, perching on the edge of Tessa’s bed. Tessa nods, pulling her favorite heels on and plucking her cap and gown up off the bed.

“As I’ll ever be.”

The ceremony is long, and Tessa hasn’t hated her last name this much since she graduated from high school four years ago. She shifts uncomfortably in the plastic fold out chair and sends Kaitlyn annoyed looks as names get called out in a continuous stream. She’s grateful that if she has to suffer through the unending ceremony, at least she has a friend to commiserate with.

She’s also glad that Scott’s name is halfway through their class so she at least has something to look forward to.

When they do call his name, she resists the urge to leap out of her seat, settling for clapping and cheering as she watches him cross the stage. He poses for pictures, shaking some school official’s hand with one of his own and clutching the diploma in the other, and Tessa feels a surge of affection rush through her. She wants nothing more than to run up onto the stage and hug him close, kiss him all over his face, tell him how proud she is of him.

She doesn’t do any of those things, settling back in her seat as he leaves the stage and ignoring the look Kaitlyn is sending her from the row behind her. 

She and Scott haven’t defined their relationship yet, so they sure as hell haven’t told their friends. But Tessa thinks they haven’t been particularly subtle. Their group movie nights are spent with Tessa and Scott occupying a loveseat, curled against each other under a shared blanket. They go out to dinner on double and triple dates, even if they’re the only ones who know that they’re on a date, too. They’ve definitely hugged for a few moments too long and Scott’s definitely spent too much time tucked into the spot on her neck he loves and Chiddy might have walked in on them making out on the couch one time. But nothing’s official, so there’s nothing to tell.

Kaitlyn’s look says otherwise, but just keeps up Tessa ignoring her.

At long last, “Tessa Virtue,” is called out and she climbs up the stage, accepts her diploma, shakes several hands and poses for too many pictures.

As she goes through the motions, she can’t see him but she can hear him. As much as she had cheered for him, Scott is hollering all the more. It’s deafening, and her posed photo-smile warps into something genuinely as she hears him screaming her name from his spot in the mass of students draped in black.

She resists the urge to seek him out the moment she steps off stage, following the flow of students in front of her once more to her seat towards the back. But when she’s settled once more, she notices a face turned the wrong direction several rows ahead of her and meets his eye. He’s smiling that smile that makes her own cheeks hurt and waving two thumbs up at her. She shakes her head at his antics, but the smile still hasn’t left her face.

The ceremony ends and Tessa lets out a sigh of relief as she gets out of the hard plastic chair that’s been making her ass fall asleep for what feels like days. Her heels aren’t much more comfortable, but she needn’t worry about that for long.

She’s barely taken ten steps before Scott is in front of her, scooping her up off the ground and swinging her around. She wraps her arms around his neck and laughs freely, touching her forehead to his.

“We did it, kiddo!” He cries out as he puts her back down. From the corner of her eye she can see their families moving toward them, and she knows their friends are gathered around them, but she doesn’t care. All she cares about is him, celebrating in this moment.

Still, she’s shocked at what he does next.

His arms are firm around her waist and his eyes are sure as she looks into his, and then their lips are connected and he’s kissing her in front of all of their friends and family.

She’s shocked, but she still pulls him closer.

When he pulls back, his eyes are shiny and there are definitely tears streaming down her face. She thinks her tears might even be smudged on his face, too.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers against his mouth.

“I love you,” he says.

She kisses him again, and again, and again.

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW THE END!!
> 
> Thanks again for reading this whole thing! It's the longest thing I've ever written and I'm pretty proud of it so I'm so honored that y'all seem to like it (even if I ruined your lives a bit)!! Now I'm going to go hide away in a hole until I have something light and fun and fluffy to share with y'all.
> 
> As always, let me know what you thought!!


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